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Microsoft provided us with a final build of Windows Phone 7.5 on an older Samsung Focus. The older hands — released last year — handled the updated platform software with nary a twitch, so I'd expect the modern WP7.5 handsets announced in recent weeks to perform splendidly.

Using Mango, it is hard to pinpoint any obvious changes that stare you in the face. But as you use the platform over the course of a day, you'll see the smoothed out rough patches, longer menus, additional settings and apps, and other small indicators that tell you you're using a better platform than before. Screens are clean and clear, transitions are crisp and present, everything about the platform feels polished and like it belongs. It has a very attractive user interface that I like much more than I like Android. Microsoft has done a fine job at crafting a very user-friendly smartphone platform that is extremely powerful and feature-rich.

MANGO  

First, on the unlock screen, there's a great set of notifications placed at the bottom of the screen that let you see in an instant what new missed calls, emails, and messages you may have received. They are easy to jump into once you unlock the phone.

The home screen is still made up of the live tiles, but you'll see that more of the tiles are dynamic, updating apps with content that changes throughout the day. Mango supports more tiles, and more types of tiles, such as email folders and message threads.

The email program has been given a wide range of new features, the most important of which is support for threaded email view. It works flawlessly and lets you see an entire conversation from the inbox without loading a new screen. The email program syncs perfectly with Outlook, Exchange, Gmail and any other POP3/Email client you can think of.

The messaging features are fantastically done. Through the contact application, you can choose to view all the recent messages you've sent a given content — be it a text message, email, IM, or whatever — and then pull it all together into a single threaded conversation. This is beyond neat. It also offers "presence", which lets you see when your contacts are signed into any given messaging service and are available to chat.

The People Hub now supports Twitter and LinkedIn, which enriches the experience with even more content coming in from your friends and contacts. I really like how Twitter works in the People Hub. From there, it is easy to send a Tweet, update your status, see what your LinkedIn contacts are up to, and so on.

The browser has been updated to IE9, and it works very, very well. It renders web sites beautifully, and I found it to be responsive and speedy during my time testing it. It supports embedded video, complex graphics, and heavy duty web sites with ease. I'd call it a more capable and more attractive browser than the Android browser, hands-down.

The last noteworthy feature is called App Connect. With App Connect running, the platform is aware of what you're doing and will recommend related apps and pre-populate them with associated content. So, for example, say I used Bing to search for nearby restaurants. If Open Table is on my phone, Open Table will launch and show you which of the nearby restaurants it works with in order to score a reservation. Not all apps and scenarios will support this, but even using it with general search tools I was able to find useful apps with great content.

Here's an in-depth look at Mango:

Eric has been covering the mobile telecommunications industry for 17 years at various print and online publications. He studied at Rutgers Newark and University of Kentucky, and has a degree in writing. He likes playing guitar, attending concerts, listening to music, and driving sports cars.

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