Windows Phone 7.5 Explained

Windows® Phone 7.5, Mango, is the newest update to the mobile platform from Microsoft®, and it's wowing users with its clean design and impressive functionality. Here’s a quick overview of some of its coolest features, shortcuts and innovations.

If you’re not familiar with the Windows Phone platform, you’ll first be impressed by its overall look and tidy user interface. The Home Page features large, simple tiles that help you quickly navigate where you need to go.. With Hubs that group common tasks and features together, Mango is fast, intuitive and easy to use.

Mango now includes threaded email conversations so you can more easily find and locate key messages, rather than hunting through a long list of subject lines.

Mango also lets you pick and choose which email accounts to group together. You can now see all your messages in one handy inbox, or keep your work email separate from your personal accounts.

Rather than checking all of your social networking apps (Facebook®, Twitter™, LinkedIn®) to see what’s going on with your friends and family, Mango gives you People Hub—which collects all of their updates together in one convenient place.

Within People Hub, you can also organize groups, such as College Buddies, Family and Work Colleagues, so you can focus on the right people at the right time (which can come in handy when you don’t want everyone at the office to see those photos from last weekend, for example.)

Mango also gives you application Hub called “Me” where you can post status updates to any of your subscribed social network sites, read your latest profile notifications and check into a location.

One of the most asked for features is Mango’s new ability to multitask. Now you can easily switch between apps without having to restart each and every time. So, if you have to interrupt that game to take an important phone call, when you hang up you can just hold the ‘Back’ button and jump back into the action exactly where you left off.

You now have the ability to view, edit and even create Microsoft Office files right from your smartphone, making it an essential feature for on-the-go professionals. Office Hub integrates the actual Microsoft Office applications, such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint, so you can connect seamlessly with the data you have stored on Microsoft's SkyDrive.

The Calendar function in Mango is one of the most impressive features. Alongside your scheduled meetings, you can embed your tasks within the calendar for a more integrated agenda. This allows you to plan your day around one itemized schedule, rather than having your planned appointments in one place and your “to-do” list in another.

The Web Marketplace for Mango gives you access to thousands of apps, and you can shop apps and songs online. With the Web Marketplace, it’s remarkably easy to transfer apps from your computer to your phone. Rather than having to sync your device to your PC, Web Marketplace will send your purchases directly to your Mango-outfitted phone.

The Camera app in Mango is improved to let you tap the screen to focus, then tap again to take the photo. Mango also includes a handy Auto Fix feature to help your photos look their best. When you want to upload your photos, Mango lets you tag your friends, then uploads those tags to your favorite social network.

Mango comes outfitted with Local Scout. Local Scout uses your location to find places nearby to eat and drink, places to shop, and things to see and do. Mango also features improved Maps, now with spoken directions.