I am actually dying to get my hands on a Windows Phone 7 (WP7) phone to try it out. Especially with the update to Mango and Nokia launching the Lumia range; WP7 looks like a viable OS. I would even go as far as to say if I didn’t have an iPhone I would choose it over Android.

Android is suffering from fragmentation, where each handset maker has a variation of the OS; So when Google update you have to wait for the manufacture to modify it and then hope that your woefully under powered cheap handset will run it. Google are combating this with making the ‘Holo’ theme used in Ice Cream Sandwich mandatory, but they are not going all they way.

It looks like Microsoft has learnt from their previous experience in this market and by watching others namely Palm’s WebOS and Google’s Android go up against the iPhone. People want their phone to stay simple but be smart at the same time. They seem to have found a balance between Google’s open to everyone and Apple’s full control approaches to offer real an alternative. This combined with the eye watering aesthetic that Nokia have been using since the N8 it makes it a real pleasing offer.

The titled interface is a refreshing way of looking at a phone compared to Android and iOS’s very similar UI’s. Microsoft seem to have realised that the key to getting a phone OS to stick is to get apps, something WebOS failed at. I hope this could be another XBOX for Microsoft.