Hasta La Gadget!

Microsoft took a dramatic step with Windows Phone 7 Series this morning at MWC in Barcelona, and obviously we’ve been talking about it all day here at Engadget HQ. Just like with the iPad and the Droid, opinions on the staff are all over the map — it’s not every day that a company reboots an entire OS — so we’re going to let everyone speak for themselves, starting with the people who’ve handled Windows Phone 7 Series in person: Josh, Chris, Thomas, and Sean.

Josh:

The most astonishing thing about Windows Phone 7 Series is how completely it’s managed to obliterate its Windows Mobile roots. Let’s just be crystal clear about it: this is unlike anything the company has ever done, both in distancing itself from its past, and in the clarity of its vision. From the floor to ceiling, 7 Series is just a very new operating system with very new ideas about how users should be involved with their devices. What people should recognize is that the Windows Mobile team has made a huge gamble that upending its ailing OS was the only solution… and from the looks of things, that gamble has paid off. But this isn’t a battle already won — it’s a battle yet to be fought. There’s still much we don’t know about this OS, and plenty to be concerned about when it comes to turning what looks nice in a demo into a daily use smartphone. There are huge questions to be answered. How are notifications handled? What kind of SDK will be made available to developers? How rigid will the user experience guidelines be? What is the real story on multitasking? Will the phone support third party browsers, email clients, or messaging applications? Can hardware manufacturers differentiate their products enough? Will the basic phone experience be useful to enterprise users or others looking for a workhorse and not just a pretty face?

Honestly, those are just a few of the questions I have — but I also continue to be impressed with Microsoft’s fierceness of conviction on this platform. If the company can hew close enough to its promises and deliver on the tall order it’s set out for itself, then hope for Windows in the mobile space is far from dead. It’s about to be reborn.

Continue reading Editorial: Engadget on Windows Phone 7 Series

Editorial: Engadget on Windows Phone 7 Series originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 22:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Not quite sure if you’ve heard, but Microsoft launched a new mobile operating system today. Crazy, right? Unfortunately, it’ll be a few weeks seasons still before you can actually wrap your palms around an actual Windows Phone 7 Series device, but the folks over at MSDN aren’t holding back. They’ve hosted up a 22 minute video walkthrough to explain every nook and crannie of the fresh OS, and if you’re one of those “impatient” types, you owe it to yourself to hit the source link and mash play. Grab a beverage first, though.

[Thanks, Nathan]

Microsoft offers up lengthy Windows Phone 7 Series video walkthrough originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 12:39:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Windows Phone 7 Series. Get used to the name, because it’s now a part of the smartphone vernacular… however verbose it may seem. Today Microsoft launches one of its most ambitious (if not most ambitious) projects: the rebranding of Windows Mobile. The company is introducing the new mobile OS at Mobile World Congress 2010, in Barcelona, and if the press is anything to be believed, this is just the beginning. The phone operating system does away with pretty much every scrap of previous mobile efforts from Microsoft, from the look and feel down to the underlying code — everything is brand new. 7 Series has rebuilt Windows Mobile from the ground up, featuring a completely altered home screen and user interface experience, robust Xbox LIVE and Zune integration, and vastly new and improved social networking tools. Gone is the familiar Start screen, now replaced with “tiles” which scroll vertically and can be customized as quick launches, links to contacts, or self contained widgets. The look of the OS has also been radically upended, mirroring the Zune HD experience closely, replete with that large, iconic text for menus, and content transitions which elegantly (and dimensionally) slide a user into and out of different views. The OS is also heavily focused on social networking, providing integrated contact pages which show status updates from multiple services and allow fast jumps to richer cloud content (such as photo galleries). The Xbox integration will include LIVE games, avatars, and profiles, while the Zune end of things appears to be a carbon copy of the standalone device’s features (including FM radio).

Besides just flipping the script on the brand, the company seems to be taking a much more vertical approach with hardware and user experience, dictating rigid specs for 7 Series devices (a specific CPU and speed, screen aspect ratio and resolution, memory, and even button configuration), and doing away with carrier or partner UI customizations such as Sense or TouchWiz. That’s right — there will be a single Windows Phone identity regardless of carrier or device brand. Those new phones will likely look similar at first, featuring a high res touchscreen, three front-facing buttons (back, start, and perhaps not shockingly, a Bing key), and little else.

Carrier partnerships are far and wide, including AT&T, Deutsche Telekom AG, Orange, SFR, Sprint, Telecom Italia, Telefónica, Telstra, T-Mobile USA, Verizon Wireless and Vodafone, while hardware partners include Dell, Garmin-Asus, HTC, HP, LG, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba and Qualcomm. We’re told that we likely won’t get to see any third-party devices at MWC, though Microsoft is showing off dev units of unknown origin, and the first handsets are supposed to hit the market by the holidays of this year.

We had chance to go hands-on with a device before the announcement, and we’ve got some detail to share on just what the experience is like, so click here to read our hands-on impressions (with lots of pics and video on the way!).

Continue reading Windows Phone 7 Series is official, and Microsoft is playing to win

Windows Phone 7 Series is official, and Microsoft is playing to win originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Continue reading Toshiba spits out K01 QWERTY slider at MWC

Toshiba spits out K01 QWERTY slider at MWC originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 06:54:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The eagle-eyed folks of learnbemobile have come across this stupendous leak of Microsoft’s forthcoming Windows Mobile 7 OS. It would appear that some last minute alterations were taking place under the covers in Barcelona, though apparently no one bothered to check if there were cameras around before lifting said covers. You can see what appears to be some kind of Xbox Live integration — which was heavily rumored already — taking up a corner of what’s presumably a new home screen for the OS. There are also big, finger-loving notice icons for calls, text messages, and email, with sections for Facebook, Pictures and “Me” filling out the rest. We don’t have any more info than these few shots, and the aforementioned site just has the images camped out on its Facebook page, but it definitely looks to be the real deal. If this is the new face of Windows Mobile, color us excited for today’s event — it looks like a radical departure (or at least a crazy skin). You can check out a few more shots in the gallery below.

[Thanks, HJ Willems]

Update: The official announcement has now been made and fully corroborates the visuals leaked here. Check out our hands-on experience with the fresh new software to learn more.

Windows Mobile 7 interface and device leaked on MWC banners originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 15 Feb 2010 05:25:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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