It's just so horrible - All you need to know about Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango)

All you need to know about Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango)

Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 operating system was a complete ground-up rewrite of its mobile OS. The Mango update adds many new features, and since the OS is quite an unfamiliar one to most users (given the dismal sales of WP7 devices), we've written this as an introduction and guide to help users get to know their handsets better. You may also want to check out our earlier review on the the first version of the WP7 OS.

Note: All information compiled here is based on Windows Phone Mango Beta 2 (7.10.7712.60). New updates may mean that some features will be changed or removed.

Learning about the UI Windows Phone's Metro UI  is all about Tiles and Hubs, and right from the start, you'll notice that these tiles update based on the information received--if you have four unread messages, your Message tile will flip to show the amount. It's pretty intuitive and you'll easily understand what going on with your phone at a glance. There are also only two screens (a Start and an app screen), swiping to the right opens a list of apps where you can also access your phone settings.

Swiping
Windows Phone 7 is about using your fingers to navigate the UI, so you'll find yourself swiping from screen to screen to access your content. To bring up a menu, you'll need to swipe upwards from the bottom where you see the ellipsis (...) icon.

Arranging and adding tiles
To arrange your Live Tiles on the Start screen, just do a long press on the tile. You'll then be able to reposition or remove the tile from the main screen. To add Live Tiles to the Start screen, swipe to the right, and do a long press on your chosen app. This will bring up a menu where you can permanently delete the app from your smartphone or pin it to the Start screen.

Searching within apps
Strangely enough, the magnifying glass button on your Windows Phone doesn't actually let you search your current screen--pressing the magnifying glass button actually calls up the Bing search page instead. You'll have to tap on the tiny magnifying icon, which then lets you look for the information you need, whether it's an app or a contact.

Multitasking
New to the Mango update is the ability to multitask, and it works much better than the limited version of the original Windows Phone 7 OS where you could only play music in the background or check the calendar while making a call.

To access the multitasking feature, all you need to do is hold the back button and windows will pop up showing you the previously used apps. Simply tap on the window of choice and the app will load. For this to work, developers will need to implement the Mango multitasking API. If not, the app in question will restart as opposed to continuing from where you left off. There's also no indication on whether an app is capable of running in the background, so you'll have to do a bit of trial and error to find out.

Me
The Me tile has now been improved, as you can post messages, check into places (on Facebook), see notifications and set your chat status. It's quite an upgrade, and it really feels like a central hub that allows you to see what's going on in your life.

Threads
One of the major changes to how you interact with your phone is the inclusion of threads. It puts your SMS, Facebook Chat and Windows Live Messenger (WLM) conversations into one place. You can then chat seamlessly even if your friend logs off from the computer as you'll then be SMSing him instead. From this screen, you can also log onto WLM and change your status or see who's online to chat with.

Linking contacts
To make full use of the thread view, you'll need to link your contacts. This can be tedious, as the algorithm for linking tries its best to make a guess, but it doesn't link everything. So you'll have to manually do it yourself. Worse, this doesn't transfer off the phone, so in the event you have to replace your handset, get ready to start re-linking everything.

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Email The Mail Live Tile now supports multiple inboxes, letting you easily view all your emails from within one app. To do this however, you'll need to link your emails together. Otherwise, it will still remain separate and will require you to add another tile if you wish to keep your accounts unlinked.

All emails are sorted into "all", "unread", "flagged", and "urgent", and you can set the client to sync your email at various intervals. Also, adding a work account with security settings will require that you set a password on your phone. You will not be able to turn this off unless you remove the account in question.

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Buying apps from the Marketplace Buying apps on a Windows Phone is a relatively simple affair. Just tap on an app and there will be an option for you to either try or buy (or just buy if the app has no trial features). You will need to add a credit card to your account to make purchases though.

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Bing Hitting the search button will bring up Bing search. There are new improvements to the interface, and you'll find that the most exciting one is Bing Vision. Similar to Google's Goggles, Vision lets you scan barcodes, QR codes, text, books, magazines, posters. as well as DVDs or CDs. Search results will pop up without you having to hit a button. It feels magical, and it is. Text can also be translated to other languages.

Besides Bing Vision, you can also tell the phone what to search for using your voice, and there's also the option to automatically search around your location for eating places. Normal searches also work, and apps which are related to your search will show up too, though this depends on whether the app uses Microsoft's App Connect API.

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Managing battery life Windows Phone 7 has a built-in battery saver mode and you can turn it on manually or set it so that it turns on when the battery charge is low. When it's running, your email will not be automatically pushed, and apps will not run in the background. This will help keep power usage low enough to give you some time to get your phone to a charger.

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Transferring music and videos
Like Apple's iOS, putting music into your Windows phone requires you to use Microsoft's Zune software to sync and manage the data on your phone. This isn't too difficult, all you need to do is drag and drop the files and they will be synced automatically.

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Surfing the Web The latest Mango updates introduces an upgraded browser based on Internet Explorer 9 instead of IE7 which was in the first version of WP7. There are also some visual tweaks such as the address bar which is now at the bottom of the screen. You also get more screen real estate as icons are now hidden when they're not needed.

Additionally, performance is supposed to have improved thanks to hardware acceleration. There's also support for HTML5 but not for Adobe Flash or Microsoft's Silverlight. You can even share content from the browser straight to your social networks if desired. The only problem is that the browser still doesn't automatically reflow text, which means it's still as tedious to zoom in for a bigger font to read with.

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Social networking Microsoft hasc added social media integration into Mango, as mentioned earlier, allowing you to communicate continuously with your buddies through Facebook Chat, SMS or Windows Live Messenger.

You can also post your updates on through Facebook or Twitter via the Me Live tile, and view notifications and new items straight from the tile. Mango also lets you share content straight from Internet Explorer. You will still have to download the dedicated Twitter and Facebook app if you want to do more (like retweet messages), but the basic features are certainly sufficient for casual users.

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