These days, it pays to be a Microsoft employee. Not only is the company continuously growing –the employees are also getting plenty of free stuff. The latest addition to Microsoft’s bag of goodies is a Windows Phone 7 handset.
As of now, no specific details on what the free smart phone is, though some believe that this could be based on the same devices that were distributed to developers, which means that there are going to be three various handsets. The devices vary according to their manufacturers: Asus, LG and Samsung. So far, none of the devices Microsoft is giving out has been seen on images so it will be hard to verify if the developer devices are the same.
In any case, the Windows Phone 7 seems to be nearing completion and it looks like Microsoft is really up for a September launch date. The original plan was to get the first WP7 device out by the holiday season. The schedule has been moved earlier, slowly, from the end of the year to October and then September.
From what we have seen with the developer devices, the new users interface is exactly what Microsoft promised it to be. Smooth, cohesive and all the functions are nestled in simple to access commands. Users can accomplish tasks over various menus without having to return to the home screen –giving this handset a very complete feel.
However, we do have some reservations about how the handset handles the use of Facebook integrated contacts –it fills up the entire people page, which means that there is currently no way to segregate contact lists for users. This will prove to be very annoying especially for those who keep their contact lists for phones and online friends separately. It will still be some time before the final product launches, so hopefully, Microsoft will fix this issue before then.
Tags: Facebook, Microsoft, Social-networking, Windows-Phone-7