Windows Phone (Windows Mobile 6.5)

Windows Mobile 6.5, now called Windows Phone is the latest mobile OS revision from Microsoft, and it’s a vast improvement from 6.1 I’ve been using it in Beta form on my Touch HD for about six months courtesy of the folks on XDA-Developers and Miri’s WM6.5 ROM for the Touch HD. The first thing you […]

Windows Mobile 6.5, now called Windows Phone is the latest mobile OS revision from Microsoft, and it’s a vast improvement from 6.1

I’ve been using it in Beta form on my Touch HD for about six months courtesy of the folks on XDA-Developers and Miri’s WM6.5 ROM for the Touch HD.

The first thing you notice is the Today screen, now referred to as Titanium. This has been inspired by the Zune interface. The whole thing has designed to be finger friendly and require a stylus as little as possible.

Through my six months of use the only time I got the stylus out was to calibrate the screen when upgrading to newer Beta builds.

Moving up and down through the Today screen requires a gentle flick up or down of the finger. You can move directly from item to item by selecting them directly also. Each item can be opened with a tap of the screen or you can get access to extra items with left and right directional gestures.

Clicking the Start button in Windows Mobile 6 or 6.1 got you the start menu which was slightly like that in Windows XP.

The Start Menu is Windows Mobile 6.5 is completely different. In earlier builds it featured a honeycomb design however this was dropped for the simpler and plainer three column layout you see where.

Once again, there are no scrollbars to grab – Movement is achieved by gesturing up or down on the screen. You can reorder the items up or down in the list by clicking and holding on an item to reveal the popup menu.

From the Start Menu, you can lock the phone which reveals the new slide  style lock screen.

To unlock the screen you can grab the padlock and slide it either left or right to unlock.

If you have notifications such as unread text messages or missed calls, you can go directly to these items using context based unlock sliders which appear when thy are available.

One of the new key features in Windows Mobile 6.5 is the Marketplace.

Whilst I’m not going into details here because I will be reviewing this separately, the Marketplace provides a convenient and one-stop-shop for Windows Mobile applications. which spread across the web currently, although out-numbering iPhone apps by miles are hard to obtain.

One of the final great items in the new Windows Mobile is the updated version of Pocket Internet Explorer. Now giving you the full browser experience on the phone it makes good use of zoom.

   

One of the only failings of the new version of PIE is that it doesn’t give you tabs. I would have liked to have been able to gesture left and right to jump between multiple tabs.

Although available right now, I’m going to suggest waiting until October 26th 2009 for the UK and early 2010 for US so that you can get yourself a HTC Leo as this device is going to be outstanding by all accounts so far.

This sums up my overview review of Windows Mobile 6.5. I hope you’ve enjoyed looking at the future of the Microsoft Smartphone.

Next up is the Windows Marketplace.

 

 IE Menu IE LockScreen Marketplace
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