ZTE working on Windows Phone ‘Mango’ devices, will launch in Europe by Q3, to surpass Nokia

ZTE has been hitting the headlines a lot lately. After surprising everyone by entering the top-five manufacturer list, it was listed yesterday as one of the Windows Phone 7 partners by Microsoft in their Mango launch event. Today they announced that they are already working on a Mango based handset and it will be launched in Q3 in Europe.

Q1 2011 saw ZTE rank as the fifth largest handset manufacturer after Nokia, Samsung, LG and Apple and shipped close to 60 million handsets last year and plan to ship 80 million this year. They shipped close to 3 million Android handsets last year and expect to quadruple that number this year. Now they will be racing manufacturers such as Nokia in getting their own Mango based handsets first out in the market.


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Watch the best new features in Windows Phone 7.1 Mango [VIDEO]

Well, if you’ve been following any of the Microsoft’s Windows Phone 7 presentation, then you’ve most probably watch Microsoft’s corporate VP, Joe Belfiore, give one of his excellent demos on one occasion or another. Following today’s announcement of the upcoming major update to Windows Phone 7 – Mango or WP7 as it’s now known, there can;t be a better time than watch one of Belfiore’s nice tech demos.

And again, if you’ve ever watched any of his demos, you’d know they are everything but short. This one is no different, however it’s enjoyable and watchable as ever. If you don’t have the time to watch the whole 10+ minute video, you can just check the pointers we’ve left you below and only watch the demo of the feature you care the most – whichever that it. Enjoy!
So here’s Joe Belfiore’s rundown of the latest and greatest in the upcoming Mango WP7 update. You will find the following new features detailed at the respective points in the video:

• IE9 and a test of its HTML5 rendering prowess – 1:00
• Local Scout location-aware search – 2:29
• Bing Vision product searching and App Connect – 3:39
• Multitasking with new card interface (sorry, Palm… eh, HP?) – 5:02
• Email, threaded messages, combined inbox for personal email – 07:12
• Grouping contacts in groups for following their social updates – 08:19
• Threads of messages combining SMS, facebook chat, LIVE Messenger – 09:1

There’s a lot more where that came from – Microsoft has posted over 10 new videos highlighting the new features of Windows Phone 7.1 Mango. Here’s the video channel, enjoy.

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Windows Phone 7 Mango: Expect the Unexpected

Microsoft just officially introduced 500 new features to the new Windows Phone 7 update codenamed Mango. So far, it is awesomely looking good! New partners such as Acer, ZTE and Fujitsu add to the roster of handset makers that will produce WP7 phones.
Nokia phones will ship with Mango and Nokia WP7 devices are now being tested. Expect the Mango update to come out this fall to all WP7 devices.

Communications

• Better social integration – Facebook was already deeply integrated into Windows Phone. Mango sees the arrival of Twitter and Linked-In to the mix, with the latest updates from your contacts appearing in contacts. Facebook location check-ins are now also supported and there’s new facial-recognition software to make tagging photos easier before you upload them.
• Linked inbox – This frequently-requested view allows users to combine the contents of several inboxes into one. Mail is organised into conversations, so the latest updates are always at the top.
• Threads – Carry on your conversation with SMS, Facebook chat and Windows Live Messenger on the same screen – so you can concentrate on the information, not which app you’re using.
• Hands-free messaging – Text-to-voice and voice-to-text engines allow for easier texting and chatting while you’re on the move.
• Groups – put a bunch of contacts into their dedicated Live Tile so you can quickly see their latest updates and send a text, email or IM to the whole group right from the home screen.

Smarter apps

• Improved Live Tiles – these can now hold more information and be more dynamic.
• App Connect – apps can now be included in searches (e.g. when you search for ‘movies’, the results include apps that help you find films showing in local cinemas).
• Multitasking – switch quickly between apps and allow apps to run in the background.

Better Internet

• Internet Explorer 9 – the built-in browser provides support for HTML5 and full hardware acceleration.
• Local Scout – This app provides hyper-local search results for information on shopping, restaurants and activities.
• Better Bing – Mango provides new ways to search including Bing Vision, Bing Audio and voice.

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Windows Phone 7.1 Mango introduces enhanced Bing search, mobile searches won’t be the same anymore [VIDEO]

One of the new features introduced with the upcoming Windows Phone 7.1 Mango update is the enhanced Bing search. The Bing search app now offers visual, audio and voice searching. Besides these new options, the search is also enhanced with the Local Scout, that cityscape icon you’ll see on the video. What it does is, make your search location-specific, taking into account your vicinities ang giving pririty to local businesses and locations.

That’s not all however.
The new visual search will allow you to snap a shot of a barcode or even the product itself to get pricing availability and connected local apps. App connect redirects searches to the corresponding mobile application that’s best suited for the search. It sounds great on paper, but I’m not really sure how that will take off as it seems quite difficult to implement properly – mapping the entirety of available products from around the world to the hundreds of available apps sounds unbelievable. Unless of course, it’s only about simple things along the lines of IMDB app for movies and showtimes, Kindle for books and the Amazon app for the rest.
Anyway, don’t let my pessimism ruin your fun though. Have a look at the new search enhanced by the Local Scout in this rather portrait video below, courtesy of Engadget.com:



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Windows Phone 7.5 Mango bringing over 500 new features to the platform, tasty [VIDEO]

Steve Ballmer was speaking at the Japanese Microsoft Developer Forum 2011 and on his run through of all things Microsoft, the subject of Windows Phone naturally cropped up. What he actually spoke about was the upcoming iteration of Windows Phone, version 7.5 aka “Mango”.

Ballmer promised two very exciting things. Firstly, that Mango will be bringing over 500 new features to the platform. This isn’t to say each one will be as useful an addition as cut, copy, paste, but like all big OS’s, there are a lot of tweaks that can be made, so lets hope for the better. Secondly, Windows Phone 7.5 Mango handsets will be arriving later this year in Japan.
Tomorrow, there’s an all Mango event where Microsoft will reveal a host of OEMs and carriers and with this, rumor has it that we will get to see a lineup of around 9 new devices from an array of different names, including Samsung and HTC. For the developers out there, the Mango development tools will be available by the end of the week too.
I’m sure we’ll be back tomorrow to find out what secrets Ballmer and the rest of the Microsoft team divulge, so until then here’s a video snippet of Ballmer talking about the overall potential of Windows Phone and more specifically, Mango (be aware, you might need to up your volume).




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