Windows Phone 7 “Mango” – Some Initial Thoughts

“Is this my phone?!?”

The first thing that has been noticed is that the HTC HD7 (Bell Mobility) runs quite a bit faster than it did before.

Apps come up a lot quicker with menu animation and flip happening in a much smoother manner along with that speed.

Big pluses seen so far:

• Tasks/To Do is now integrated into the phone!
• Swipe left or right to get to them.
• When a Reminder comes up it can be Snoozed longer than 5 minutes.
• The time options are a bit limited, but certainly better than the lack of control in the previous version.
• 5 minutes, 10 minutes, 1 hour, 4 hours, 1 day.
• Unlock time before the phone is locked has been increased to 15 minutes for those of us that get distracted! ;)
• Now up to 15 minutes of unlock time.
• Note the extra drain on the battery though.
• Phone features
• Merge Call is now available.
• Hold and Swap are a lot easier to get to.
• Buttons on all calling features have been improved for those of us that are visually challenged.
• Customized ring tones!
• Security
• PIN can be more than 4 digits (was the previous version locked down at 4?)
• Twitter is now integrated into the phone.
• Settings –> Accounts –> New –> Twitter.
• LinkedIn and Facebook are also integrated.
• The Clipboard now behaves more like a true Windows machine’s Clipboard would.
• Copy and Paste is sticky across apps and also capable of multiple pastes.
• Battery Saver
• The phone will cut out all non-essential services to reduce battery consumption.
• Talk and Text/Message
• Tap a Bluetooth headset button and say, “Text My Wife” and go.
• Reply to text and Messenger messages too though it worked out of the box and are not sure how to get it going again!
• Improvements to cursor control
• Controlling the cursor has been a bit of a bear since day one. The last major update greatly improved things while Mango seems to have improved even more on precise placement.
• The Me tile is tied into Twitter, Messenger, and other social media.
• It actually means something now (at least for those of us that may be behind the social media curve).

The one drawback that will take a bit of getting use to is the loss of the Folders access button in Outlook to allow us to get into the Inbox’s subfolders quickly. It is now hidden behind the “…” More option at the bottom.

In the end Mango is a big win. It is as though the phone is new! :)

Philip Elder
MPECS Inc.
Microsoft Small Business Specialists
Co-Author: SBS 2008 Blueprint Book

*Our original iMac was stolen (previous blog post). We now have a new MacBook Pro courtesy of Vlad Mazek, owner of OWN.

Windows Live Writer