GADGET WATCH: Windows Phone Mango

Microsoft’s Windows Phone software has been available for quite a while but as many smart phone owners would know these gadgets only improve with time and multiple software updates.

Its newest version, Windows Phone Mango, brings a suite of new features to the phone that come even closer to delivering significant competition to Android.

But is it enough to get new users on board?

Hardware and Features

The Windows Mango update includes 500 new features, some more significant than others.

Some of the more notable inclusions are custom ringtones, new speech commands, threads in emails and text messages, conversation view and linked inboxes.

Users can now publish to social networks from the phone and have the ability to collect contacts into groups. Multitasking has also been introduced, a long-awaited feature.

Updates to the calendar include the addition of multiple accounts, with Mango now allowing video sharing, picture tagging and the ability to save different cameras settings.

Work wise, users can now sync with SkyDrive while more updates have been introduced to the Office Hub and the mobile version of Excel.

Users can now use Windows Phone handsets as mobile hotspots to connect to other Wi-Fi enabled devices.

What’s the consensus?

One of the better inclusions in Windows Mango is the new user interface while Engadget writes that the look is nearly indistinguishable from previous versions.

“More stuff can be pinned to the Start screen, including multiple tiles from the same single app. For example, you could have five different eBay bid tiles featured on Start or the weather from two cities,” Engadget says.

Tiles are now able to receive push notifications more frequently and with enough apps are installed you’ll be able to sort through them alphabetically.

Wired writes that the new People Hub, where all contact information can be stored together, is now revamped and easier to use.

Filters look at “All”, “What’s New” and “Recent” – “all” is a list of contacts, “what’s new” shows social media feeds and “Recent” displays recent activity for people who have been called or messaged.

The Internet Explorer 9 browser is a significant upgrade over IE8.

PC Mag praised multitasking but also said this particular method of multitasking is “mixed”.

“Hold down the phone’s Back button and you can switch between the last five apps you used. That’s easy and clear but apps need to be Mango-compatible to take advantage of it,” the magazine says.

“Some apps, such as Bejeweled and Glyder, actually relaunch themselves when you try to switch back and forth.”

With many users having called for multitasking for some time, this could be disappointing for some.

PCMag also expresses disappointment in the new voice-to-text features, saying they could do more.

Overall it writes that with too many features to review “pretty much everything has been improved”.

The negatives to Windows Phone are not so much bad inclusions but oversights, with reviewers lamenting that Windows users can’t take screenshots, while settings for various social media accounts aren’t clearly explained. Many also dislike the way alphabetical lists are set up.

Who’s it for?

Windows Phone is really coming into its own now and is beginning to mount a real challenge to iOS and Android, especially as Microsoft prepares to launch Windows 8 next year, which should integrate mobile devices in new ways.

If you’re an entrepreneur who likes to get stuff done using a smart phone a Windows-powered phone that may not have been on your radar six month months ago definitely should be now.