Windows Phone 7 with Mango rocks the best mullet in the smartphone world

You probably know what a mullet haircut is and while it may not be the style today, it is a very efficient style with business going on in the front and a party in the back. You also don't have to look like a complete loser in a mullet and as shown by John Stamos in this picture to the right it can even be cool. In my opinion Windows Phone 7 is compelling because of this "mullet" design and is why I keep putting my SIM back into one. Now that I have the latest version of Mango on my 32GB Dell Venue Pro this OS update makes it an even more attractive mobile platform.

Business in the front

I am an Exchange user and Windows Phone 7 offers a top notch Exchange experience with conversation view, ability to search the server, ability to create appointments and invite attendees, manage your tasks, and more via a wireless Exchange connection. Office 365, SharePoint, and SkyDrive are supported and integrated in Mango so there is no lack of capability to share, collaborate on, and manage documents right from your phone.

Other platforms offer Exchange support and Office through 3rd party applications, but since Microsoft owns many of these native desktop solutions they are able to enhance the mobile experience more than others in most cases.

Windows Phone Mango includes some fantastic messaging features such as groups, threaded services, and linked inboxes so you can stay in touch with people in a variety of ways to make your communications experience the best.

When new platforms launch one of the first things they are hammered on is the lack of applications, which of course take time to build. Windows Phone Marketplace now has over 25,000 apps, which surpasses the 2+ year old webOS Palm Catalog and the RIM BlackBerry App World so I think we can stop focusing on the app story for this platform. It isn't just the number of apps, but the quality and variety and right now I can't even think of an app I need that is lacking on Windows Phone 7.

The new Internet Explorer 9 web browser is top notch, voice guided navigation in Bing Maps works well, and the many new features in Bing (Local Scout, Music, Vision, and Voice) are all there to help you get the job done on the go.

Party in the back

If you look at the reports that come out about what genre of apps sells the most then you will find that gaming rules the mobile platform software stores. Games are excellent on Apple's iOS, but with the new Mango functions I think Xbox LIVE enabled games beat even iOS with game quality, integration with the Xbox LIVE platform so you can earn achievements and communicate with friends, and the fun avatar experiences.

Apple has been the leader in the smartphone world in terms of media due to their fantastic ecosystem. The only other platform that has such a well integrated and supported ecosystem is Windows Phone 7 and if you are someone like me that prefers subscription services then there is nothing better than WP7. Mango gives you the ability to discover, stream, and download music and podcasts through the Zune Marketplace. You can get TV shows and movies and then share all of these music and video experiences through your Xbox at home.

The camera capture experience on Windows Phone lets you press and hold the camera button on a locked device with the display turned off and have the camera launch to take a photo and then share it without ever requiring you to unlock your phone. Like Android, you can now easily share these photos from directly within the camera software too.

Apple's iOS has a decent mullet, but the business end on the front isn't quite as clean as that in Windows Phone 7. Android, webOS, and BlackBerry have a ways to go to get their ecosystems in place and need to spend a lot more time at the barbershop.