Microsoft have made their yet to be released mobile phone platform "Windows Phone 7" available for technical preview to some in the press and the developer community. Engadget, BGR, Wired and ZdNet were among the few to get their hands on a Samsung smartphone called Taylor, which ran the new Microsoft OS.

The Core Idea
The Windows Phone 7 has been built from scratch with a totally new and innovative core-idea. It is said to be designed around the user and what he would like to do, rather than on apps and tasks. Matthew Miller from ZdNet explains this in the following manner - In case you want to take a photograph of something, you need to press and hold the camera button, even if the phone is locked to get the camera started. Once you take the shot, you just need to tap and hold to upload. Without this core-design-concept, you'd first have to unlock the mobile phone, then start the camera app, then take the picture, access the social network where you want to upload it and so on. Not just the camera app, Microsoft have built almost all aspects based on this idea.

User Interface
Videos from these aforementioned sites, show the UI of the Windows Phone 7 device to be very finger-friendly and intuitive. Microsoft has made the UI, which is called Metro UI, more graphical with 'tiles'. Apps or hubs on the homescreen are represented as tiles. There is a tile each for Contacts, Pictures, Social networks, Games and so on. In fact you can customise the homescreen to include as many tiles as you want. These tiles can be moved around and placed according to your liking.

One innovative design detail of these tiles is that they seem 'alive'. The tiles give dynamic displays of their content. For exemple, if it is a Gmail tile, it shows the number of new mails you've received. Pictures tile keeps showing little photos that it contains.

Microsoft seemed to have put heart and soul into making the user experience better. Engadget was impressed with the touch responsiveness and speed of the UI. Matthew Miller from ZdNet, calls it a very fluid interface.

Aggregating Contact Details
Finally Microsoft have done it. Once you open your Facebook account, or any email account, details of contacts are fished out from here and added to your phone's contact list, which Microsoft prefers calling "People" app.

Gaming
The Windows Phone 7 devices will be getting the mobile phone compatible Xbox Live on them.

Entertainment
Microsoft have put the Zune as well as the Marketplace into the Windows Phone 7 device for entertainment. You can download TV shows, music and videos from Zune. You can as well download music from the Marketplace along with games and apps. This Marketplace is yet to be populated with apps, for which Microsoft requires the developers.

Search Engine
Bing, which is obvious is the default search engine. Windows Phone 7 as well allows for voice searching, where you speak out something that you're looking for and the device hunts it down for you. While the searching is powered by Bing, the voice recognition is powered by Tellme.

No MicroSD cards for Windows phone 7 mobile phones
MicroSD cards will no longer be supported by Windows Phone 7 phones. They'll all come with beefy internal memories of atleast 8GB.

Atleast a 5MP camera and flash
This is one of the bare essential hardware requirements for Windows phone 7 devices.

More minimum hardware requirements.

For Business
Microsoft has integrated the complete Office tools in the device. Thus you can work with Word, Excel and Powerpoint on your smartphone. There is Microsoft Outlook and Exchange integration. Emailing and setting the calender can all be done. However, these aspects still need finishing touches from Microsoft.

Settings
Windows Phone 7 allows making all settings at one point. So there is global settings management, all at one place.

Windows Phone 7 Cons seen thus far
One of the downsides that has been noted right now (which might change during the final release) is the lack of multi-tasking ability with 3rd party apps. Currently only first party apps are multi-task-able. Another one is the lack of Twitter integration which is at par with networks like Facebook. Despite the integration of MS-Office, there is no copy-paste functionality yet, which is considered a major drawback.

Windows Phone 7 is still in its foetal-stage. Microsoft have work to be done on it. However, whatever was made available to the developer community seems very impressive - much better than previous Win-Mo platforms. This edition of the Windows platform is very critical for Microsoft as it will decide whether the Windows maker stands a chance in the race with biggies like Apple, Google and Palm (HP).

Windows Phone 7 release - expected November 2010.
Pricing - Not yet announced.