Windows Phone 7 Technical Previews Released
|If you have been waiting for more information on the Windows Phone OS and what you can expect, today is the jackpot! Microsoft has put these devices into the hands of developers, Developers, DEVELOPERS! as well as a handful of press to post their thoughts. Here is our take on their take of the Samsung Windows Phone Device:
1. Keyboard is noted as best in class
2. SMS/MMS is very standard
3. Lack of multitasking was hammered by most as was lack of copy/paste
4. Inability to limit contacts from filling with all Facebook contacts was a minus. The FaceBook photos also filled the photo HUB
5. Most liked the UI and panoramic controls
6. Word was noted as being underpowered and only had limited editing capabilities (for a company that created Word).
7. A few sites that noted spending a few days with the test devices seemed impressed by how easy it was to get used to and integrate into general life
8. Lack of Twitter and YouTube integration was cited
9. Even on a test device they all noted it was fast and never locked up
Here is a rundown of some of the technical previews we have found. I’m sure David will have more tonight when he sounds off about it!
- SuperSite For Windows
- ZDNet: Matt Miller has a great 8 page review/preview with lots of Video.
- BGR
- CNET
- Engadget
- Techmeme
Let us know what you think!
#4 – Hopefully that will be addressed. That is a pretty big concern for Facebook users.
#6 – Sadly, Word is about on par w/ current Office Mobile versions. I really wish MS offered something better. Even Excel looked reasonably powerful, but Word was just sadly underfeatured. Don’t need all of the desktop bells and whistles, but more powerful formatting would be nice.
#8 – Twitter – I think this really is a must have. I can take pictures, but then have to jump through hoops to send them through Twitter. No native notifications. I use Twitter much more than Facebook so this one hurts a bit, even though I can understand a little on why it’s not there right away and there will be 3rd party apps. I was just hoping for native support as it’s pretty useful and sending a pic right away would be cool.
I’m still a little disappointed w/ lack of upgradeable storage. I know some of the reasons for it, but I’d be willing to backup the device, swap out the card, then hard-reset to start using that card so I can restore the backup to a larger storage card. This just strikes me as an opportunity to be gouged for a larger micro SD card by the manufacturer / carrier.
I still like a lot of what I’ve seen and hope that MS will release an update pretty quickly to bring in the missing / lacking features. Of course, I want to see the devices, but will likely give this a try one way or another despite the lacks noted above.