Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Mobile
  3. News

Microsoft Windows Phone 7 Series to Reinvent Windows Mobile

Geoff Duncan
By
peoplescreen_web

Microsoft is throwing the mobile technology equivalent of a Hail Mary, taking the wraps off a completely reworked mobile platform today at the Mobile Wold Congress in Barcelona. Dubbed Windows Phone 7 Series, the new platform isn’t just the next version of Windows Mobile: it’s a complete rewrite of Microsoft’s mobile operating system, featuring not only the enterprise-friendly features that will keep the devices in corporations and government, but extensive social networking capabilities, integration with Microsoft’s Zune and Xbox Live online services, and tight hardware specs that should (eventually) make the landscape for Windows mobile devices more uniform and consistent for consumers. And the first units are due to reach consumers in time for the holiday 2010 shopping season.

Windows Phone 7 Series Home Screen“Windows Phone 7 Series marks a turning point toward phones that truly reflect the speed of people’s lives and their need to connect to other people and all kinds of seamless experiences,” said Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer.

Recommended Videos

Windows Phone 7 Series will do away with Windows Mobile’s staid home screen and replace it with a series of live “tiles” that holistically keep users in touch with the friends, events, and tasks that matter the most to them. Users will also be able to create their own “hubs” on the phone that pull together information from on-board applications, the Internet, and services into a single, consistent view. Windows Phone 7 Series phones will ship with six pre-build hubs—people, pictures, games, music+video, marketplace, and Office—to get folks started with a 7 series device. The Games hub will make 7 series phones the first (and only) mobile devices to officially tie in with Xbox Live (pulling up avatars, gamer profiles, achievements and more), while the Music+Video hub will enable users to “turn their media experience into a social one” via Zune Social on a PC. We’re not quite sure what that means yet, but apparently 7 Series mobile devices music, video, and radio features draw heavily from the Zune HD. The Office hub will provide access to mobile versions of Microsoft’s mainstream Office applications, including Word and Excel along with Outlook, OneNote, and SharePoint Workspace.

Related

Numerous device partners are already on board with Microsoft for the 7 series launch, including operators like AT&T, Orange, SFR, Spring, T-Mobile, Verizon, and Vodafone, along with equipment makers like Dell, HP, HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, LG, Qualcomm, and Garmin-Asus.

Unlike previous Windows Mobile efforts, Microsoft seems to be taking a more commanding role in speccing out the hardware for 7 Series devices: 7 Series phones will reportedly be required to use particular processors running at a minimum speed, minimum memory requirements, and telling OEMs what kind of button configurations and screen sizes/resolutions their devices must have. And those buttons? One of them will be a dedicated Bing search button. No Google for you.

Microsoft is promising the first devices will be available by “holiday 2010″—which could mean any time from October to mid-December.

There’s little question that Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 Series is an ambitious break with Windows Mobile, which has been languishing in the face of competition from the likes of RIM and Apple. However, customers may not be thrilled to wait another 8 to 11 months for Microsoft’s mobile OS to finally start to get serious about the consumer smartphone space…and it’s a sure thing that competitors will not be standing idly by in that time.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Geoff Duncan
Geoff Duncan
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Geoff Duncan writes, programs, edits, plays music, and delights in making software misbehave. He's probably the only member…
A phone you never heard of just beat the Pixel 7 Pro in an unusual camera test
The iPhone 14 Pro, Pixel 7 Pro, Mate 50 Pro, and Phantom X2 Pro's camera modules.

Two new phones are doing something different with their cameras to create a stronger, more versatile depth of field effect, where the background is blurred around a subject. It’s a complicated technical endeavor on a phone, as to replicate the effect naturally, it normally requires a DSLR camera with a large sensor and manually adjustable aperture.

But is the new system any good? We’ve put the Huawei Mate 50 Pro and the Tecno Phantom X2 Pro, with their fancy apertures, against the Apple iPhone 14 Pro and the Google Pixel 7 Pro to see if the clever camera systems really can create a better natural bokeh effect.
The phones and the cameras

Read more
How to turn a Live Photo into a video on your iPhone
Live Photo to video with hand holding iPhone.

Apple's Live Photos are photographs on steroids. When you shoot a Live Photo on your iPhone, it captures 1.5 seconds of video both before and after you tap the shutter. The result is not only your picture but also the scene enhanced by movement and sound as you tap and hold the image on your device. Live Photos debuted in 2015 alongside the iPhone 6S, and they are easy to create because the process is exactly the same as shooting any other kind of photo.

Read more
Should you buy a phone on Black Friday or wait for Cyber Monday?
The Galaxy Z Fold 4's hinge.

While Black Friday is the best time to buy a phone, many folks tend to worry about whether waiting for Cyber Monday is a better idea. This fear of missing out is pretty typical around these two shopping events, so let's take a look at that and some great Black Friday phone deals you can pick up.
Should you buy a phone on Black Friday?
The short answer is yes, you should buy a phone on Black Friday. While it's true we're likely to see many great deals on Cyber Monday, especially since they tend to mirror Black Friday deals, you can never guarantee that. As such, it's better to grab Black Friday phone deals as soon as you see one you like rather than waiting. Plus, even if you find a better deal on Cyber Monday, you can still refund your earlier purchase from Black Friday and pick up the newer and better deal.
Our 5 favorite Black Friday phone deals
Straight Talk Apple iPhone SE (2020) -- $99, was $149

The Apple iPhone SE (2020) was a big surprise when it was released a couple of years ago since Apple always maintained a more premium product category. Even at a lower price, the SE is still a surprisingly powerful machine that uses the A13 Bionic chip. Granted, it's a bit dated at this point, but you can still get some great performance when playing games and using apps; at the very least, it's still quite snappy. Picture quality is, of course, excellent as ever, given that Apple has some of the best cameras in the industry. As for the screen, it's a 4.7-inch beauty with a resolution of 1,334 x 750 with True Tone, so it adjusts to your environment, which we love to see for a budget Apple phone. Of course, the most impressive part is that you can grab all of this through Straight Talk for less than $100, and while it is the older SE, it's still an excellent phone, but if you want to see the comparison, we have taken a look at the Apple iPhone SE (2022) vs. iPhone SE (2020).

Read more