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Windows Phone 7 preview (photos)

CNET gets a hands-on preview of Windows Phone 7. Check out the photos here.

Bonnie Cha
Bonnie Cha was a former chief correspondent for CNET Crave, covering every kind of tech toy imaginable (with a special obsession for robots and Star Wars-related stuff). When she's not scoping out stories, you can find her checking out live music or surfing in the chilly waters of Northern California.
Bonnie Cha
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Windows Phone 7

The lock screen on Windows Phone 7 shows the date, time, upcoming appointments, and any missed calls or new messages. You can also set a password for the lock screen.
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Start screen

Microsoft completely rebuilt Windows Phone 7 from the ground up. The Start screen now features live tiles that provide one-touch access to your favorite apps and contacts. They also alert you to new messages and calls and status updates.
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Start screen

You can rearrange tiles by doing a long press on the Start screen. To pin new contacts and apps to the page, however, you must first navigate to the app list or your contact list.
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Apps menu

A quick swipe to the right from the Start screen brings you to a full list of your apps. We're not huge fans of this long vertical list, as it requires a lot of scrolling. As you add more apps, we can only imagine it will get more unruly.
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Hubs

A large part of Windows Phone 7 is centered around Hubs, which brings together related content into one central zone. Here you have the People hub, where you can find all your contacts, see their status updates, and more.
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Pictures hub

Here is a view of the Pictures hub. All hubs feature a panoramic UI and attractive, bold typography.
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Picture hub

In another view of the Pictures hub, you can view your photos by album.
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Sharing options

You can share photos in a number of ways, including e-mail, MMS, and Facebook. You can also upload it to SkyDrive, Windows Live's online storage system.
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Sample photo

A sample picture taken with the Samsung Taylor's camera in Times Square.
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Phone dialer

What's interesting about Windows Phone 7 is that the interface can be both sophisticated and totally minimalistic, like the phone dialer app here.
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Samsung Taylor

The Windows Phone 7 preview device we received from Microsoft is called the Samsung Taylor. It will never be released to market, but will be offered to developers prelaunch so they can test their apps and meet all the platform hardware requirements, including the three requisite navigation buttons. Smartphones from LG will also be distributed to developers.
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E-mail

Windows Phone 7 offers support for Exchange and POP3/IMAP accounts. Unfortunately, you don't get a unified in-box so each account creates a separate in-box.
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E-mail

A contextual toolbar in the e-mail app allows you to create a new message, view folders, select messages, sync, and access settings.
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Keyboard

Despite what you might think from this photo, the keyboard is easy to use, accurate, and responsive.
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Keyboard

Here is the landscape keyboard. When you're entering a URL or e-mail address into a To field, the keyboard automatically brings up a .com shortcut. Similarly, when you're writing a message, it surfaces a shortcut to a list of emoticons.
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Calendar

The calendar is available in various views, including by month.
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Calendar

You can also view by agenda. Though Windows Phone 7 doesn't offer a unified in-box, it does provide a unified calendar, with appointments color-coded by account.
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New appointment

Creating new appointments is easy, but we couldn't access our corporate directory to invite attendees.
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Text messaging

There isn't anything particularly noteworthy about text and multimedia messaging on Windows Phone 7, but you do get threaded chat view.
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Zune

Windows Phone 7 offers a full Zune experience, including access to the Marketplace. In addition, if you have a Zune Pass subscription, you can stream unlimited music.
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Zune

The interface of the Music + Video hub is largely like the Zune HD.
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Podcast support

Windows Phone 7 will require the Zune desktop client, not only for transferring and syncing media, such as podcasts, but also for general device management. No more ActiveSync.
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Music player

The music player's interface features simple controls, and also displays album art and an artist image in the background.
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Video

We downloaded a free TV preview from the Zune Marketplace, and playback was smooth.
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Internet Explorer

Internet Explorer on Windows Phone 7 is much improved in functionality and performance. However, right now, it doesn't support Flash, Silverlight, or HTML5.
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Browser settings

The browser offers a number of options, including search, bookmarks, and the ability to pin Web pages to the Start screen.
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Multiple windows

With Windows Phone 7, you can have up to six Web pages open and easily toggle among them with the thumbnail views.
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Office hub

The Office hub allows you to view, edit, and create Word and Excel documents, as well as view and edit PowerPoint presentations. However, the editing options are pretty light, and there's no copy/paste.
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Bing

Search on Windows Phone 7 is handled by Bing. Unfortunately, however, there's no universal search for the phone, so if you want to search for a contact, you must first go to the People hub.
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Voice recognition

Alternatively, you can use the phone's voice recognition system to call contacts, launch apps, and so forth.
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Bing

Bing offers both a 2D map view as well as an aerial map view.
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Navigation

A recent update to Bing brought turn-by-turn navigation to the app. What's also nice is that you get both a map view and text-based instructions.
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Xbox Live

Xbox Live wasn't turned on for our preview, but here's a screenshot of the Xbox Live hub.
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Windows Marketplace

Windows Marketplace was another feature we weren't able to try, but here's an example of the storefront.
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Windows Marketplace

Another view of the Marketplace, showcasing new apps.

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