Microsoft Windows Phone 7 technical preview: A definitive guide

Welcome back into the smartphone arena Microsoft, it looks like you have a serious challenger entering the ring and I will definitely be purchasing a device as soon as I can. I spent an hour with the Windows Phone 7 team and was then given a Samsung developer phone (looks to be something like the i8910 Omnia HD device) with the latest Windows Phone 7 Technical Preview to use for about 3 weeks. As Terry Myerson posted on the Windows Phone blog Microsoft hit this Technical Preview milestone and is sending out thousands of prototype phones loaded with this “Technical Preview” to let developers test out their applications on functioning devices and get their applications ready for launch. The Samsung hardware this is running is not what you will see at launch so I won’t focus on the hardware in this hands-on detailed look at the current version of Windows Phone 7.

We saw the official announcement of WP7 in February at Mobile World Congress and have seen various details revealed at events since that time. I was still skeptical of the functionality and capability of the new operating system and after the recent Kin disaster I honestly wasn’t expecting much from Microsoft. After using the Technical Preview version of Windows Phone 7 in an up close and personal way I can honestly say that I am quite excited for the holiday season when we will see these devices launching from Microsoft. Check out my extensive image gallery (about 90 photos), several embedded YouTube videos, and detailed experiences below and through the next 8 pages.

	Image Gallery: Check out some hardware photos and about 80 actual screenshots of Windows Phone 7 Technical Preview running on a Samsung device.

In this walk through the Windows Phone 7 Technical Preview you will find my thoughts on the following:

• Intro to the Technical Preview
• Microsoft’s philosophy and approach to Windows Phone 7
• Walk through the user interface
• What are the minimum hardware requirements?
• Detailed coverage of the six hubs
• Is Exchange support still good?
• What is in the device settings?
• How is WP7 different than Kin?
• Daily usage experiences
• What is missing in the Technical Preview?
• Closing thoughts on the current version of WP7

I have this particular developer phone to use for the next couple of weeks so please ask me any questions you want about the software and if I get enough interest I will create a Q&A follow-up post before I give the device back to Microsoft.

You will also find embedded videos covering the following:

• Unboxing the Windows Phone 7 developer phone from Samsung
• Initial startup, login, and setup of WP7
• Six hubs of the Windows Phone 7 OS
• User interface elements and performance of the UI
• Applications loaded in Windows Phone 7
• Settings in Windows Phone 7

Intro to the Technical Preview

I want to make it perfectly clear before you dive into the details that this is just a Technical Preview release of the Windows Phone 7 software and there is still some time before the release candidate will be complete so there are some functions that are not fully developed and there will most likely be bugs along the way. However, after using it as my primary device for five days I have yet to see ANY lockups, freezes, or resets on the Samsung device I am testing out. Actually, I am blown away by how stable this version of the software is because I have seen more issues with shipping devices running the iOS, Google Android OS, etc. than I have with this version of the software. It also helps that this Samsung Omnia HD-like device has a beautiful OLED display.

While I will run through the operating system and my experiences, these may change a bit when Windows Phone 7 launches on devices so don’t expect to see everything exactly as it is in this Technical Preview version. From what I understand of Microsoft’s development process there are technical previews and betas, then release candidates, then release to manufacturer versions. This version is designed for developers to use and carriers to start testing out on their networks. It is still personally very encouraging to see how far along this version of the WP7 software is and to see it performing so well, with the understanding that there will be improvements before release.

Microsoft’s philosophy and approach to WP7

Windows Mobile (Pocket PC before that) was based on the idea of bringing your desktop user experience to your hand and it worked well for years as Microsoft knocked Palm out of the PDA game (Palm had a hand in killing themselves off too). Over time, the technology improved and more and more people (not just your computer geeks) starting using handheld devices. Apple then gave the mobile community a shot in the arm when they showed how fluid a mobile phone UI could be and they brought millions of new users into the community. We then saw Google and Palm build on the iPhone user experience and now we have a completely new fast paced smartphone market. This market is actually still quite young with LOTS of room for expansion and I wouldn’t begin to count Microsoft out yet.

With Windows Phone 7, Microsoft really started over from scratch and gave up the idea of bringing the Windows desktop experience to the phone and decided to bring a great phone experience with the ability to work with your data, play your games, and interact with your social networks and friends wirelessly and naturally. They completely streamlined the experience (I will go into detail on this in the next section) and are centered on the essentials.

Microsoft is focused on thinking about tasks differently and recognizing the “explosion of more”. The iPhone is completely focused on the application as a means to get things done as you can see with their user experience designed for you to tap on an app to do things with your iPhone. Android and webOS also have this, but have taken it a step further with widgets, notifications, and better service integration. With Windows Phone 7 Microsoft wants you to think about doing things naturally and holistically. They want your phone to model how you would do something in the real world so for example if you wanted to take a photo and then share it you simply press and hold the camera button (even when the phone is locked) to start the camera, take the photo, and then tap and hold to upload. You don’t have to unlock the phone, start the camera application and then have to start a social networking application to do this. I understand that Android and the iPhone have some of this integrated as well in the camera now, but Microsoft thinks like this throughout Windows Phone 7 (I will cover this in more detail below) where the focus is on the things you do and the way you interact with people rather than on the applications you use and need to perform tasks.

The “explosion of more” is the idea that the customer will expect more out of the device and platform as they begin to use it and discover the capabilities. Microsoft will release updates and improve the device over time while also putting major efforts into helping developers launch applications that can tie into the operating system and continue to improve the end user experience.

User interface elements »