Mango Beta - Impressions

[guru]

having just installed the beta of Mango and played around with it for a while.. I'm really stuck by how "same" it feels to Nodo on the Start page. I'm wondering why MS didnt add an option to change accent colors and background image for the tiles..

first change you'll notice is when you swipe to Apps and this the first place you'll notice a change. There is a alphabet / search button now which is great if you remember the name of all your apps but if you have one too many .. then its a pain. wish they had an option to sticky a few most often used apps at the top Another badly needed option to zoom text in Messages.. They are little too small

Answer / Cancel buttons that show up when you get a call are now bigger and there is no down arrow anymore next to 'end call'. speaker Mute options are auto opened. which is useful... but the UI feels less sophisticated and out of sync with the rest of Metro :unsure:

Everything else Mail, Office (specially), IE, Music + Video,Pictures,Contact List,People Hub couldn't get any better.

didn't notice this before maybe this was in Nodo and before

but when i go to playlist in Music it says.. "Its lonely in here.. connect your computer to sync music lol"

if you've installed Mango what do you think?

[jakem1]

having just installed the beta of Mango and played around with it for a while.. I'm really stuck by how "same" it feels to Nodo on the Start page. I'm wondering why MS didnt add an option to change accent colors and background image for the tiles..

first change you'll notice is when you swipe to Apps and this the first place you'll notice a change. There is a alphabet / search button now which is great if you remember the name of all your apps but if you have one too many .. then its a pain. wish they had an option to sticky a few most often used apps at the top Another badly needed option to zoom text in Messages.. They are little too small

Answer / Cancel buttons that show up when you get a call are now bigger and there is no down arrow anymore next to 'end call'. speaker Mute options are auto opened. which is useful... but the UI feels less sophisticated and out of sync with the rest of Metro :unsure:

Everything else Mail, Office (specially), IE, Music + Video,Pictures,Contact List,People Hub couldn't get any better.

didn't notice this before maybe this was in Nodo and before

but when i go to playlist in Music it says.. "Its lonely in here.. connect your computer to sync music lol"

if you've installed Mango what do you think?

That lonely message has always been present although I just checked in my music/video hub (Nodo) and it's says "No items. Connect..."

Can you provide a pic of the text you think needs a zoom option? Are you talking about the message text in the speech bubbles?

[guru]

That lonely message has always been present although I just checked in my music/video hub (Nodo) and it's says "No items. Connect..."

Can you provide a pic of the text you think needs a zoom option? Are you talking about the message text in the speech bubbles?

ha. didnt know.

yeah. the speech bumbles. pinch to zoom doesnt work :/

[George P Global Moderator]

A start screen background and or the ability to have different types of tiles (not just color but things like, glass tiles or 3D type styles to them) will probably show up in WP8 ir not in the rumored Tango update next year. I just figure right now they're more interesting in performance and adding usability features/support for things that are missing and not so much UI customizations.

[Zain Adeel]

if they add that many or kind of UI customizations it would make all devices look too different. and i think microsoft wants their Idea or simplistic design to shine out of the other offerings in the market.

And im with them on this part. But what i want is atleast a grey accent if its not already there and most needed a white accent with with black insides .. and vice versa to go completely METRO .. that would look damn awesome!

[George P Global Moderator]

if they add that many or kind of UI customizations it would make all devices look too different. and i think microsoft wants their Idea or simplistic design to shine out of the other offerings in the market.

And im with them on this part. But what i want is atleast a grey accent if its not already there and most needed a white accent with with black insides .. and vice versa to go completely METRO .. that would look damn awesome!

I dunno, having some different tile styles wouldn't change the UI really, they're still tiles, except you'll have glass, or stone, or wood or w/e stuff like that. It's in the same area as changing colors imo. Also a start screen wallpaper option wouldn't be much of a change either. Of course battery life comes into play when you start to add more onto the screen, that's one tradeoff.

[XIII]

Is it just me or the audio in Zune player gets better with Mango. I love the added bass :)

[Mountain Dew]

I can tell you right now not to hold your breath for background pics. MS loves when people use OLED screens, and when you have a black background it saves a ton of power when using an OLED screen since the black pixels are unpowered.

[norseman]

1 day and 16 hours of use before needing to recharge my phone. Granted I only voice chatted for 1:45mins and did some light browsing and music playback this time around.

I love the new Zune interface, agree with the weird / too simple hangup and accept call interface buttons.

They do look rather bland and out of place. Might be easier to use and locate though.

I really like the new shutdown screen, i know it is a basic thing but it is nice.

The volume toggle looks better and am glad everything just works the way it should.

IE9 even is detected properly and renders some of my favourite websites a lot better (Neowin and Interacelift).

[BajiRav]

1 day and 16 hours of use before needing to recharge my phone. Granted I only voice chatted for 1:45mins and did some light browsing and music playback this time around.

I love the new Zune interface, agree with the weird / too simple hangup and accept call interface buttons.

They do look rather bland and out of place. Might be easier to use and locate though.

I really like the new shutdown screen, i know it is a basic thing but it is nice.

The volume toggle looks better and am glad everything just works the way it should.

IE9 even is detected properly and renders some of my favourite websites a lot better (Neowin and Interacelift).

Can you post some pics please? :) I am not going to risk update right now but those tiny call buttons and the always tap arrow to expand the mute etc. is one irritation I have with my WP7.

[norseman]

Can you post some pics please? :) I am not going to risk update right now but those tiny call buttons and the always tap arrow to expand the mute etc. is one irritation I have with my WP7.

How do I provide a screenshot from my phone? I will try to do this sometime this week!

[Quppa]

Very happy with Mango. My only complaint is that opening the tab list in IE requires one more click than it did 7.0.

[BajiRav]

How do I provide a screenshot from my phone? I will try to do this sometime this week!

just photos from your camera will work for me. :)

[guru]

Bing Vision - Pictures to Text translation is effing awesome.. hopefully, MS marketing will show this off in Ads

[Suave Sagittarian]

I agree with everyone here that the additions to Mango are just awesome! The changes to Bing - vision, audio, extras are amazing. And best of all they now work in the UK!!

I also like how many speech command options are now available. Earlier, for the UK, there was only CALL and OPEN. Now, there's CALL, OPEN, FIND, TEXT and PRESS. Brilliant!

Where the start screen is concerned, I would agree that it looks a lot similar to NoDo, but there are additions there as well. Small example the ME tile, shows notifications as and when you get them. Earlier the ME tile was static which showed you your picture, and latest status message. Now the tile swivels and shows "X user commented" or "Y user liked your status" or, if there are a lot "4 new".

This happens on the contacts pinned on your screen as well. Earlier, it was just a pic and status updates. Now, it displays the number of texts, number of calls, notifications, etc. there as well.

The pictures tile, now keeps scrolling through a slide show of your favorite pics.

So, even though the start page looks somewhat similar to NoDo, it is a LOT more dynamic and actually shows a lot more info than NoDo.

[George P Global Moderator]

Yup, gotta love the new tile system, can't wait to see how devs take advantage of it with their apps. Also wonder how far MS can take it after this, like into WP8. I'm thinking maybe they can work out a way to add direct controls somehow, like on the double-wide tiles for example.

[guru]

Battery now lasts two days on Mozart compared to a day with Nodo - with location turned on. wifi and bluetooth off.

[guru]

Outlook now has Snooze option in the Calendar / Meeting notification !!!

[geoken]

I like the new dialer/call screen. There are a lot of small touches that make it better to use. First, switching between the numpad and function keys is great. Whenever I'm calling a company and I'm on hold for a while and dealing with a lot of automated answering machines I'm always switching between the numpad and turning the speaker on/off. This used to take a lot of extra taps (tap the numpad button to hide it, tap the phone functions button, tap the speaker phone button, tap the phone functions button again to hide it, then tap the numpad button again to show it). I also like how the screen doesn't go completely black when the proximity sensor gets triggered. This saves a second or two because the screen takes a shorter amount of time to become active when you pull the phone away from your ear.

My biggest surprise was how fast everything has become. Especially panoramas in third party apps. The panoramas in the native apps always functioned nicely (I assume because they were written in native code) but the panoramas in silverlight apps frequently felt sluggish. Weave is a great example, it always felt sluggish to me but in the Mango beta flicking around is smooth as butter. Flixster is another app which felt somewhat sluggish before but know runs super smooth.

[M_Lyons10]

My biggest surprise was how fast everything has become. Especially panoramas in third party apps. The panoramas in the native apps always functioned nicely (I assume because they were written in native code) but the panoramas in silverlight apps frequently felt sluggish. Weave is a great example, it always felt sluggish to me but in the Mango beta flicking around is smooth as butter. Flixster is another app which felt somewhat sluggish before but know runs super smooth.

Microsoft improved threading in a number of the controls so that they would populate on a different thread automatically and run smoother. One of my favorite improvements honestly, and one of the things that tempts me the most to install Mango. In fact, I would if I didn't have to uninstall it and void my warranty... I'm hoping that Microsoft improves that in future Betas...

The changes to the call screen seem a bit odd, hopefully that will be improved before release?

Can anyone confirm Visual Voicemail's inclusion? It was reported that it was going to be in Mango, but I've not heard anything more about it.

[Ironman273]

I commandeered one from work and put my SIM card in it so I could really get a good idea on what WP7 was about. I had played with it before, but didn't really use it for calls and such. Since it's a TMobile phone and I'm AT&T I'm down to Edge, which I had forgotten how slow it was. Also, I can't use MMS because of the settings. All I have to say is either the Nokia or the HTC Eternity are going to be my next phone (coming from an iPhone 4). I realize it isn't for everyone but it pretty much nails everything I need and want in a phone. I loved the iPhone for all the apps available. Well, I've found pretty much all the apps I need so far in the WP7 App market, and that's only going to get better. Just Bing by itself takes care of a couple of apps right there. I love the lock screen. I have iOS 5 on my iPhone and, although the new notifications are a vast improvement I think the WP7 implementation is better and more elegant. I like how it reads texts and lets me answer them when I'm in the car through Bluetooth. I like being able to put an Outlook folder as a tile. Speaking of that, I love the Live Tile feature, but that's not new. :D

What don't I like? The wake button on the HTC HD7 is horrible, but this wouldn't be the phone I'm getting anyways. Bluetooth streaming doesn't work in my wife's Lexus. Although the phone lasts through a full day it does end the day with less battery than the iPhone (Wifi and Bluetooth always on). I'll have to see how it acts on the newer phones. Can't think of any more negatives.

[M_Lyons10]

What don't I like? The wake button on the HTC HD7 is horrible, but this wouldn't be the phone I'm getting anyways. Bluetooth streaming doesn't work in my wife's Lexus. Although the phone lasts through a full day it does end the day with less battery than the iPhone (Wifi and Bluetooth always on). I'll have to see how it acts on the newer phones. Can't think of any more negatives.

I've noticed with my HTC Trophy that their phones seem to be a bit underpowered battery wise... I'm hoping that HTC resolves this in the future, but honestly, I think I'm going to look at other OEM's for my next device (Which will definitely be a Windows Phone device still). I don't think it's a Windows Phone issue though personally.

[Suave Sagittarian]

Can anyone confirm Visual Voicemail's inclusion? It was reported that it was going to be in Mango, but I've not heard anything more about it.

It's not included in the BETA build of Mango. Although, I've read somewhere that they are planning to include it in the release build of Mango. ( But that was just a rumor on a website. )

[~Johnny]

It's not included in the BETA build of Mango. Although, I've read somewhere that they are planning to include it in the release build of Mango. ( But that was just a rumor on a website. )

http://windowsphonedaily.blogspot.com/2011/07/visual-voicemail-spotted-in-mango-some.html

It's active in the BETA - but carriers must explicitly allow it on the phones from their end, and some carriers require you to add an additional option to your phone plan to enable it. If you're on AT&T for example, it won't work at all, as AT&T don't officially support it on WP7, so don't allow your phone to recieve it yet.

[tsupersonic]

I've noticed with my HTC Trophy that their phones seem to be a bit underpowered battery wise... I'm hoping that HTC resolves this in the future, but honestly, I think I'm going to look at other OEM's for my next device (Which will definitely be a Windows Phone device still). I don't think it's a Windows Phone issue though personally.

I don't know how you use your phone, but I can easily get a day on my Verizon Trophy...I have location on, 3G data on, WiFi on at all times. I make 1-2 calls/day, 50-100 texts/day, and definitely some gaming. I've heard Mango improves battery life greatly, so that will definitely be welcome!