Jan 22 2012
A look at Windows Phone
After almost losing all traction in the mobile market, in 2010 Microsoft released Windows Phone 7 to mainly positive reviews, and towards the end of 2011 they followed it up with an impressive software update (known as Mango) which added further key features. As its market share grows and with a key partnership with Nokia, has Microsoft done enough to make it’s Phone software a viable alternative to iOS & Android?
Rather then try to imitate its competitors Microsoft have developed a new style of Interface featuring large, high contrast, tiles which change to pass on information, and a focus has been put on ease of use rather then technical power
In this article I’ll outline my thoughts on Windows Phone, as seen on the Nokia Lumia 800 provided by Three.
Phone Navigation
Navigation through the system has been designed to be as easy as possible, your default home page, referred to as your Start menu, is where all your live tiles and links to your favourite Apps are stored. To see all the tiles in the Start menu you simply scroll up and down using your finger.
The tiles themselves are relatively large so there’s little danger of you pressing the wrong link, and generally contain a description image and title to signify its purpose, some tiles are designed to display you live information, for example, the calendar tile shows you your currently reminders, your email tile displays how many unread emails you have waiting and your Pictures tile displays a preview of images you have stored on the phone.
The tile system might be a new way of operation, but after you get used to it, you can find information very quickly.
From the start menu you can scroll right to a page containing a list of every App that is installed on your phone, this list 
may be quite long and navigation is again performed by scrolling up and down so finding an App might take a while, but apps can be pinned to the start menu by simply holding down on the icon an selecting a menu option.
Just under the bottom of the phone screen are 3 hardware buttons/icons, a back arrow to skew you to your previous screen, a Windows button which always takes you back to the Start Menu and a search button which takes you to the Bing Search Engine.
The Bing search tool should not be underestimated as it is a powerful tool. Along the top of the screen is the familiar Internet Search tool, but along the bottom of the screen are a number of useful tools. From the Bing screen you can scan QR codes, identify music that’s playing around you, give voice commands and even see events that are taking place near your current location.
Communication
Windows Phone places a large importance on communication and many of the phones functions are focused on keeping you up to date with all your latest messages from several sources. Windows Phone supports Windows, Outlook, Nokia, Yahoo, & Google Email accounts as well as LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook Social Networks, and it takes all the information from these sources and aggregates it into central locations on the phone.
Email and SMS are given their own Apps but Key to social communication are the Me & People Apps. It’s worth mentioning that the font used by Microsoft Phone is easily the most readable font on any mobile phone.
The Me App is your Hub on the phone, it lets you post a message to any or all of the Social networks that you are a member of, it lets you check in to a location and sets your real time chat status. It also gives you notifications of any updates to Facebook conversations you have joined and also notifies you if someone mentions you in a tweet. The Me App also summarises all your social activities since your last view of the App.
Along side the Me App is the People App. People takes all your contacts from all sources and all brings them together in one place. Here you can see all your contacts from all possible sources, sorted alphabetically. It’s also possible to link contacts, so if you have the same contact on different networks you can synchronise their details into one unified contact entry.
Selecting a contact will show you all the information you have about the person, if you know their phone number you can phone or text them, if you know their social network details you can interact with them, if you know their their postal address you can get directions to them, and there are many other options. You can even view each contacts recent activity on Social networks, It’s very impressive how many data sources are all brought together into the one place and how interactive it all becomes.
Very simply it’s one of the most powerful social communication tools on any phone, and in this regards it puts iOS to shame.
Apps
Apps have really come into their own on smartphones and theres no doubt that WindowsPhone is still catching up with Android and the iPhone, although things are slowly starting to improve.
Out of the box Windows Phone doesn’t come with many Apps installed, apart from the usful and surprisingly productive Microsoft Office, the much advertised Nokia Drive Sat Nav App, so you may wish to add your own by using the Market place.
The market place is separated into applications, games and music, and has a comprehensive search function, there are both free an paid Apps
Pictures & Camera
Rather than a software launcher, Windows Phones have a dedicated Camera key which when pressed launches the camera App, this works well although it might be different to what you are used to.
The camera key can also be used to take a focus and capture a photo, although its also possible to focus on a specific object in view by pressing on it on the phones screen.
The quality of the image will depend on which phone you own but in my tests the quality is as you would expect from the hardware.
As on other phones your pictures are presented to you through a photo roll system, sharing is easy but there is a lack of picture editing facilities, limited to only a auto fix option.
One of the great elements to the Pictures App is that not only does it provide access to all the pictures you have stored on your device but it also acts as a hub to all the pictures that your social media contacts have posted online too, so you get a one stop shop for all your friends photos.
Whats missing?
Windows Phone is relatively new to the market so it hasn’t had the opportunity to evolve in the same way as iOS or Android. Microsoft have rightly concentrated on getting the basics right, but power users will notice that there are some features missing.
Online video compatibility is hit and miss, YouTube works but other popular sites including BBC iplayer and tvcatchup don’t work yet. The quality of the video image on our test device (a Nokia Lumia 800) is probably perfectly fine for the casual users but the iPhone and Samsung Galaxy S 2 play the same videos at a far better quality, and the speaker quality was a little sub par.
Power users have come to expect the presence of WiFi hotspot functionality on their smartphones and as yet Windows Phone doesn’t support this feature, front facing camera’s for video chat also aren’t supported at the moment which will disappoint some.
Windows Phone is ideally suited to the average mobile phone user, who likes to keep in touch with their friends, or those who enjoy heavy social network use.
Power Users may have to look else where but Microsoft have done a fantastic job at producing a great system for the majority of phone users.
