14 DAY TRIAL // Hot on the heels of Microsoft's announcement regarding the technical preview availability of its upcoming Windows Phone 7 operating system comes info on the first unboxing videos of handsets powered by the platform hitting the Internet. Since the official release of Windows Phone 7 is still a few months away, one might find it strange that such videos are now available, but it seems that there is a simple explanation. These clips were offered by application developers who already received handsets from Microsoft.
The Redmond-based software giant announced a while ago that it plans on offering test devices to mobile applications builders so as to ramp up the development of software solutions for the forthcoming platform and, starting with last week, these handsets began shipping to developers. Some of them thought that it would be nice for the community to have a look at these devices too, and the said videos emerged around the web, showing that Windows Phone 7 technical preview in all of its splendor.
The handsets sent out to developers come from Samsung and LG, and were meant mainly for testing purposes, thus the Technical Preview version of Windows Phone 7. However, the mobile phones are pretty close to the production units and, even if they do not show exactly like the final product, they offer us the possibility to make an idea of what those devices would look like.
There are three videos embedded at the bottom of this article (courtesy of Zdnet via Redmondpie), the first of which shows a Samsung Windows Phone 7 Technical Preview unit, with the second offering a look at Windows Phone 7 Startup and Initial Setup, and the last of them meant to show UI Elements of Windows Phone 7.
The delivery of Windows Phone 7 devices to developer's was one of the major steps Microsoft made towards helping the building of applications for the platform take off. Previously, the company delivered a nice range of tools to developers, along with various training kits, accompanied by developers sessions and similar events, and now it enabled developers try out their apps on actual devices, outside the emulator.