A week ago Microsoft announced Windows Phone 8 and some bad news: it won’t come as an update to any current WP models, including the Lumias. Well, as a consolation users will get the Windows Phone 7.8 update, that will bring many of the features of WP8 to the older devices. And now we have a demo/teaser of some of these features.
One of them is the new Start screen, that involves 3 sizes of tiles: small, medium and wide (twice as big as the medium). In the demo video below you see that now you can not only pin or unpin a tile, but also change its size and make it bigger or smaller. It’s also a good idea to place 4 smaller tiles at the top of the screen and use them as notification area, if you want. Microsoft’s Ben Rudolph is the one doing the presentation here and you must know that this WP7.8 feature is borrowed straight from WP8.
The model used here is the Nokia Lumia 900 and it looks pretty good with those varied tile sizes. Last I heard, the Windows Phone 7.8 update was ready for a July release, but that’s a mere rumor, so don’t take it for granted. An end of summer release is a pretty safe bet…
