Microsoft Phone 7 Almost Nails it

The Windows 7 phones are sharp and the operating system is a gem, But Three years on the side lines, Microsoft (MSFT) Needed something tremendous To Make The World Forget all ITS stumbles in the mobile.

Microsoft's Windows 7 Phone, Unveiled on Monday in New York, Almost hit the mark.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer kicked off the first part of an all-day Windows Phone 7 show in New York. After the rundown, a demo of Windows 7 features and a brief hands-on with one of the phones, it became clear That Microsoft is very much back in the mobile game.

That game has two lead players - Apple (AAPL) and Google's (GOOG) Android operating system - and Microsoft's Windows 7 puts it squarely in the pack. But Instead of one brilliant thing - an application or somethings flash of originality - Microsoft rolled out a hodgepodge of features That Shem oddly familiar to anyone who's used an iPhone or an Android device.

A short test drive of the HTC Surround Which lands at AT & T (T) on Nov.. 8, proved Windows 7 To Be easy and pleasing. Identifying Windows 7's feature is the ITS homescreen, Which has tiles Instead of icons. As an alternative, you CAN press the arrow at the top right and get an application view, or icons Arranged in a vertical roster.

When you touch a tile, it turns over in the sweet animated fashion like a leaf and starts you is what Microsoft Calls a "hub." There are six tiles hub: people, pictures, games, media, and the Office Marketplace.

In "People," you are Given a picture of your contacts list. Open a contact and you get a list of options Including call, email, text and Facebook wall writing. In the Office you get a roster of applications and an option to Create a document. Touch the "create" on the screen and you get a choice of what application you want: Excel, PowerPoint and Word. Clicking the Word opened a Windows version of the Phone 7 of Word and allowed typing and saving pretty simply.

The Virtual Keyboard That Comes With Windows 7, is very similar to SwiftKey, a popular mobile phone application keyboard is available for Android phones. As you type, the software predicts the word you want, offers suggestions and corrects your spelling as you go. Certainly it wasn't perfect, But it did cut down on typos and backspacing - a step forward for the mobile typists of the world.