Windows Phone 7 review – hands on

As much as Microsoft is confident in the idea of hubs, there’s also a long list of functions and features which should appeal to power users.

We asked the team about the Office functions that were demoed at MWC, and while they confirmed all Windows Phone 7 Series models would ship with a version of Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote, they had to keep quiet about how these will integrate with Office 2010 – these are features Microsoft wants to unveil at a later date.

So, overall, how did it feel? The phones we used were dev units and so had some quirks, but in general the OS felt very snappy – perhaps not surprising when you consider the likely 1GHz CPU, way quicker than the 412MHz unit inside the iPhone 3G.

It is very different though. While an iPhone user might be able to pick up an Android phone and get to grips with it almost instantly, Windows Phone 7 Series is a unique piece of design through and through.

Crucially though, it felt to us that while Microsoft had gone its own way in terms of design, it had replicated perhaps the most important part of the iPhone’s design: its enticing sense of fun.

As with the iPhone, we found ourselves wanting to touch the phone and explore the UI; the sideways scrolling through the large panels is fun and feels right.