This October 21 will see the official release of Windows Phone 7, Microsoft’s new mobile OS. We had the opportunity to test it on the HTC HD7.
At first glance, navigation seems fluid and pleasant , thanks to the HTC’s large screen. The interface is organized into 6 Hubs :
– The Contact Hub , which lets you view all thenews about the selected contact (Facebook status, Twitter, Windows Live, uploaded photos, etc.). You can also interact directly with the news from the various social networks via this Hub, which is very practical!
– The Photo Hub brings together everything that, as the name suggests, relates to photos: applications, phone albums , albums synchronized with the computer, aggregated photo feeds from social networks . Another thing you need to know is that the camera has a dedicated external button, enabling it to be switched on in less than 4 seconds ! And once the shots are in the box, they’re automatically synchronized on a 25GB Windows Live space. This Hub is particularly noteworthy for its ease and speed of use.
– The Music + Videos Hub: a special effort has been made here to enhance the visual aspect, with photos of the artists corresponding to the albums serving as your player’s wallpaper, and changing as you browse!
– The Games Hub: this should delight gamers. You can create your avatar, share your results, and many games have been specially developed by Miscrosoft for this mobile interface.
Le Hub Jeux et le Hub Marketplace
– The Office Hub: allows you to view all your PowerPoint, Excel and Word files, and to create Excel and Word files only, thanks to the OneNote Mobile 2010 suite. Pretty handy for us mobile users 🙂
– And finally, the Hub Marketplace, where you can do your application shopping! There will be around 200 applications at the launch of WP7, a figure that is apparently constantly rising.
All these Hubs are directly accessible after unlocking the screen (by slidding upwards). Any other object can be pinned to this “desktop” as a shortcut to: an application, a contact, an album…!
The lock screen also gives you all the information you need at a glance: time, date, and all your email, text message and call activity.
- The lock screen, the “desktop”, and a list of all the phone’s apps, ready to be used or pinned to the “desktop”!
All in all, it’s an OS that advocatesergonomics and a certain ease of use, which is still worth acquiring. A promising new approach to mobile telephony, which needs to make its mark in a highly competitive market…
Menel
Cette publication est également disponible en : Français (French)
