Windows Phone 7 Hands on Demo

Windows Phone 7 was unveiled to the world yesterday at the Mobile World Congress 2010 in Barcelona, Spain, marking a new stage in the evolution of Microsoft’s vision for smartphones. Joe Belfiore, the VP in charge of the program management and design for the next generation of Windows Phones, emphasized that Windows Phone 7 represented a new way for the Redmond company to look at its audience. In this context, with the Windows Phone 7 Series of devices and the underlying operating system, the software giant is attempting to produce more than a mobile platform, namely a complete, cohesive and expandable phone experience.

“We are super-excited to bring the design and user experience and feel of the phones really forward. We like to think that what we're doing is building and delivering a different kind of phone that's modern and takes advantage of people's complex lives and their personalities to deliver something that's unique and individual. And we think about two parts to this. (…) First, we want a smart design that puts the user at the center of their experience and moves beyond the phone as a PC-like item, that moves beyond separate applications and brings together some of the key things that are most important to people,” Belfiore stated.

Microsoft presented an ample demonstration of Windows Phone 7 at MWC 2010, but also provided additional content for end users. The video embedded at the bottom of the screen, featuring Belfiore is essentially a demonstration of a prototype phone like the devices that end users will be able to buy ahead of the 2010 holiday season. Belfiore covers a variety of topics, including the new user experience, social networking integration, Internet Explorer browsing, media, email and texting, GPS and maps, Bing Search integration and hardware.

“And then second, we wanted to design integrated experiences, which become destinations for your most common tasks, things like pictures, and music and video, and productivity, so that users have one simple place to go and access their Web services, access the functionality in their applications, access the data on their phones. Those are the fundamental ideas behind this new user experience,” Belfiore added.