Hardware

System requirements

Microsoft has said that it is issuing "tough, but fair" hardware requirements to manufacturers. All Windows Phone devices, at minimum, must include the following:Minimum Windows Phone device requirements

Capacitive, 4-point multi-touch screen with WVGA (480x800) resolution[citation needed]

ARM v7 "Cortex/Scorpion" – Snapdragon QSD8X50, MSM7X30, and MSM8X55

DirectX9 rendering-capable GPU

256MB of RAM with at least 8GB of Flash memory

Accelerometer with compass, ambient light sensor, proximity sensor, Assisted GPS, and Gyroscope

5-megapixel camera with an LED flash and an optional front facing camera

FM radio tuner

Six (6) dedicated hardware buttons – back, Start, search, 2-stage camera, power/sleep and volume buttons

Reviews

Reception to Windows Phone has been generally positive, with special note to certain shortcomings, which Engadget and Gizmodo felt were notable omissions in a modern smartphone OS. ZDNet praised the OS’s virtual keyboard and noted the excellent touch precision as well as powerful auto-correct and revision software. The touch responsiveness of the OS has also been universally praised by all three sites with reviewers noting the smoothness of scrolling and gestures like pinch to zoom in web browsing.

The reception to the “Metro” UI and overall interface of the OS has also been highly praised for its style, with ZDNet noting its originality and fresh clean look. Engadget and ZDNet applauded the integration of Facebook into the People Hub as well as other built in capabilities, such as Windows Live, etc.

Market share

According to Gartner, 1.7 million smartphones using a Microsoft mobile OS were sold world wide in the second quarter of 2011, for a 1.6% market share. Studies carried out by Nielsen Company indicated that in the US, WP7 achieved a smart phone market share of 1% each in the periods March to May, and May to July 2011.

Awards

Windows Phone was presented with a total of three awards at the 2011 International Design Excellence Awards; Gold in Interactive Product Experience, Silver in Research and Bronze in the Design Strategy.

“The Windows Phone 7 was built around the idea that the end user is king. The design team began by defining and understanding the people who would use this phone. It was convinced that there could be a better user experience for a phone, one that revolves more around who the users are rather than what they do. The Windows Phone 7 lets users quickly get in, get out and back to their lives.”

At the awards ceremony, Windows Phone 7 was given "the noteworthy People’s Choice Award, an award handed to the favorite IDEA 2011 gold award winner."

Results

The operating system Windows Phone is a relatively new operating system for mobile phones. This system requires more resources then competing operation systems such as Android, Bada, Symbian. Supported by Microsoft Windows Phone 7 has a great chances to take a first positions in rating. For developers it is easy system because based language is C# and MS Silverlight or XNA (a new language for creating games). Microsoft MarketPlace like AndroidMarket makes it possible to download many free applications to you device. At first glance it is perfect operating system and I try to create some little applications for mobile phones.