Windows Phone Mango Review

When Microsoft’s latest mobile operating system debuted, it stood apart visually from alternative mobile OSes. Windows Phone seven eschewed the desktop-like interfaces seen on iOS and Android. Instead, it went with rectangular “Live Tiles” that host varied apps and interactions, organizing them during a constantly cascading home screen. it absolutely was simply as intuitive and overall, it functioned well. however a year later, it feels stale.

Windows Phone

Luckily, Microsoft has rolled out a juicy update to the Windows Phone family: Mango.
Mango are offered as an upgrade on any Windows Phone seven device beginning Tuesday.

The “Metro” UI and general navigation through the platform stay largely unchanged from Windows Phone seven, however Windows Mango (officially, version variety seven.5) makes some notable enhancements to the manner it integrates social networking. the online browser has been upgraded. It additionally will everything a mobile OS is meant to try to to — use hardware sensors, search and app discovery options to assist create the foremost of your handset. Basically, Mango bumps Windows Phone from sensible to nice.

Microsoft loaned me a Samsung Focus handset (for AT&T) loaded with the new unleash. Mango are offered as an upgrade on any Windows Phone seven device beginning Tuesday.

After a fast boot, the phone’s lockscreen shows you the vitals: time, date, what’s next on your calendar, and message alerts. You swipe upwards to send it on its manner and reveal the house screen crammed with rectangle-filled Live Tiles. Phone, People, Messaging, Mail — you have got full management over what Live Tiles show and what order they’re in.

But that’s all an equivalent as before.

The biggest amendment to Windows Phone seven is within the revamped individuals Hub, where your phone, e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn contacts is stored along in one huge, long alphabetical list. As in Windows Phone seven, you have got filters: All, What’s New and up to date. All is that huge list of all of your contacts; What’s New could be a recent social media activity stream, that you'll keep lumped along chronologically or organize by platform (just Facebook updates, simply tweets); and up to date shows the individuals you’ve referred to as, messaged or e-mailed most recently.


You can merely search by name to acquire a contact from the All list, however the foremost effective thanks to utilize the individuals Hub is by organizing your contacts into teams. for example, on my check phone, I created teams for Family, Housemates and Wired. Once your teams are organized, click through to ascertain a grid of their pictures (pulled from their Facebook or Twitter profiles, or a photograph you set yourself), names, or their most up-to-date standing updates. Below that, you get the choice to send a text or e-mail to everybody within the cluster. Flick to the proper and you get “What’s New”, a group of their most up-to-date social networking updates. Flick once more and you get footage members of the cluster have uploaded. As an individual who hates the litter, repetitiveness and general bullshit I even have to buckle down and do on Facebook (Really? A newsfeed next to my Newsfeed?), this is often a godsend. currently I will simply look into the buddies and contacts I’m immediately involved with while not slogging through all the narcissistic whining of individuals I keep forgetting to cover from my Facebook Newsfeed. counting on my mood, I will look into simply the streams from my faculty friends, my San Francisco friends or my colleagues at work. you'll even pin a bunch (or one contact) as a live tile to your home screen. Tres bien!

The only draw back to the present whole theme is that if you sync your Twitter and Facebook accounts to the phone, all of these contacts get dumped into your contact list. The ensuing alphabetical list is totally unmanageable, but again, you'll rummage around for a selected name. I found the Recents filter to be the foremost helpful.

In the messaging app, the speech bubbles of you and your contact are currently differentiated with a gradient of your chosen color theme — your sent messages are a number of shades darker than your messaging contact’s. Before, each were an equivalent shade, thus this is often an improvement.

Just like in Windows seven, if you’ve synced your Google account to the phone, the Calendar app solely syncs your primary account’s calendar. However, if you’ve synced your Facebook account to the phone, it'll additionally sync Facebook events to your calendar, that is convenient.