Japanese carrier KDDI has teamed up with Microsoft and Toshiba-Fujitsu today to unveil the world’s first Windows Phone 7.5 – Mango – device, the IS12T.
The phone, which comes in shocking magenta, citrus or black, boasts an array of impressive specs and features, including a rather stunning 13.2 mega pixel camera, 32GB of internal storage, Qualcomm’s 1 Ghz MSM8655 CPU, 280 hours of standby time, 400 minutes of call time, NFC and the ability to resist both dust and water.
The CDMA phone is said to be just 10.6mm thin and weigh only 113g, which is almost as swoon-worthy as its WVGA thin film transistor liquid crystal display on a 3.7″ screen with 800×480 resolution.
Mango, which is the first major update of the WP7 platform since its release, also boasts a number of improvements to overall user experience, including a new “email conversation view” which amalgamates text messages, Windows Live chats and Facebook chat into one area. There is also hardware acceleration for HTML5, which purportedly runs a lot smoother now on the phone’s Internet Explorer 9.
Apps too have been given a boost on Mango, with Twitter and LinkedIn integration, along with new support for Facebook Places check-ins and photo tagging. The old favorites like Zune Media Player and Xbox Live are still featured, but Mango also finally brings Silverlight 4 compatibility to the table, as well as support for private applications.
All in all, Mango is certainly looking sweet, and owners of current Windows Phones have been assured by Microsoft that they can also upgrade to the improved OS in Autumn. That’s good news seeing as the IS12T is not likely to make it over to the US or European market.
Meanwhile, we wonder how Nokia feels about being pipped to the post by Fujitsu-Toshiba when it comes to Mango. Perhaps the Finnish firm just has a real aversion to fruit.
