Do Nice Phones Finish Last?
18.05.12
On the definite plus side is the new operating system, Mango. It has added refinements.
Mango keeps the recent Windows phone look, with what it calls live tiles. Those are animated squares that appear on the starting window. With a tap, you can jump to frequently used apps. They are unlike a typically stolid Windows interface; they are downright charming.
Mango adds some needed improvements that you see on other devices. One threads communications together, so conversations on e-mail or by text appear in a single, connected stream. Mango goes other devices one better, by keeping conversations threaded even if you switch between text messaging, Windows Live Messenger and Facebook chat. It recognizes the person chatting, rather than the channel being used.
The phone also multitasks. Holding the back button shows your recently opened pages as tiles, and you can hop directly to any recently opened one.
In the people hub, you can see a friend’s Facebook posts, tweets, LinkedIn status and other information on a single page. You can also create your own groups, so you can see news from just the people you want, or set up separate streams for, say, work and family.
Source: New York Times (blog)