Windows Phone 7: Review

For Microsoft Outlook users, these are godsends – good ways to get to grips with the clutter in your inbox. Google Mail users won’t be quite so impressed, as the Flagged view doesn’t pick up starred messages, there is no equivalent of Google’s Archive and, most disappointingly, there is no threaded view.

Outlook users will find WinPho’s email is probably better then the view they have on their PC. Gmail users will find the look and feel is slicker than Android, but the lack of threading may well be a deal-breaker.

The calendar is beautiful. iPhone users have a good calendar but, compared to the basic calendar on Android, this is a scrolling, sliding marvel. Microsoft demonstrators are keen to show multiple calendars (private and business) in one view, which is great. Android users would be pleased to just have the sort of scrolling abilities this calendar has.

Office features

The bundled Office Mobile is another win for Microsoft users. Every Windows Phone comes with Office bundled on it – a feature which, once again is better than what users get on their desktops.

Windows Phone can create and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint documents, and does it in style within the limitations of a mobile phone screen.

The phone also has the OneNote application, which can be used to take notes of meetings, and Sharepoint, which many organisations use for workflow applications. There’s also a good implementation of Windows Explorer, which browses fast and clearly.

Alongside all this, there are games, about whch I have nothing to say as yet, and also music and media playing, integrated with Microsoft Zune. The phone also integrates with something called the Xbox, which I have heard of, and which I understand is some sort of games console. I’m sure this will be of interest to the many people who like that kind of thing.

There is also a maps feature, with directions, which deserves to be dealt with separately.

Conclusion

For people whose work requires them to use a Microsoft mobile, or who have to work with Outlook, this phone is not just a no-brainer, it represents liberation from the frankly horrible clutches of Windows Mobile.

For consumers, or the pro-sumers who like to bring their home tech into the office, this could be a tempting offer. I reckon IT managers may be happier to integrate this than an iPhone, and the user interface is slick enough that I could imagine using this as my main phone (if it only threaded email).