The Tango update – known in some circles as the ‘Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh’ – has seen more than its fair share of controversy in the months since it first appeared on our radar, despite only recently starting to be made available to end-users on devices such as Nokia’s Lumia range. Tango brings with it various incremental improvements for existing devices, while opening the door for new hardware at lower price points, with OS optimisation for entry-level devices sporting just 256MB of RAM.
It’s these low-end devices that have been the source of much consternation for some; in March of this year, we revealed many of the OS limitations that would be experienced on devices with so little RAM, while in May, it emerged that some of the platform"s most popular apps, such as Angry Birds, could not run on handsets with 256MB of RAM.
While many of Tango"s new features have already been revealed, WPCentral has identified several more that have been uncovered by users who have been able to update their OS to the latest Tango builds.
Perhaps the most visible addition is a range of new ‘nature-themed’ wallpaper images, but another welcome change that many end-users will appreciate is the improvement made to the PIN-lock entry process. Many users will have experienced the irritation of entering a PIN only for the screen to lag for a couple of seconds before finally acknowledging the PIN as correct – this problem, it seems, is no more.
Other new features include the ability to attach a custom ringtone to a multimedia message (MMS), improved Live Tile and toast notifications, and the removal of a quirk in the App List, where the ‘jump-to-letter’ feature would not disappear if the number of apps listed fell below 45.
None of these changes is particularly revolutionary, but most users will surely appreciate any improvements that make the OS that little bit more pleasant to use. But it"s Windows Phone 7.8, with its new Windows Phone 8-style Start Screen - along with various other improvements - that will likely bring a broader range of more visible, and perhaps even more useful, changes when it arrives later this year.
Source and image: WPCentral