Author: Clinton

WPCentral is reporting that the new Xbox 360 update is expected to drop on your console on December 6th, several weeks ahead of Christmas.  Why is this important and what does it have to do with Windows Phone?  A lot actually.

The new update will bring the Metro UI to Xbox 360 , giving Windows Phone users a familiar look and feel.  It is optimized for Kinect of course and brings a host of new services to the system.  One that I’m looking forward to is FoxSports in Australia… so I can watch Footy! (That’s rugby everyone).

Wpcentral has the complete rundown of what to expect on this update

Amazon Wireless, the mobile phone and tablet selling sub-site of Amazon, has a great deal going on Windows Phones now through the end of this week.  You can pick up your choice between nine different phones on AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile or Verizon for the incredible price of $.01!  And these are all the popular models including the brand new HTC Radar (T-Mobile) and HTC Titan (AT&T).

All of the phones require a 2 year contract (either an extension of your current contract or a new one) and require a minimum data plan.

The Windows Phone models that are available include:

• HTC Titan
• HTC Radar
• HTC Arrive
• HTC HD7S
• HTC Trophy
• Samsung Focus
• Samsung Focus Flash
• Samsung Focus S
• LG Quantum

Amazon has just released a significant update to their Amazon Mobile app.  The new 1.5 version brings a new level of support for Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango) and a new barcode scanner that can check pricing and availability of an item from Amazon.  You can pin that barcode scanner to the Start screen as a Live tile so you can instantly start scanning while you are shopping.

The update also brings support for task switching that is in the 7.5 release.

The update is free in Marketplace and does require Windows Phone 7.5 to be on your phone.

It appears that Nokia’s decision to offer Windows Phone as their primary mobile platform has already paid off.  Last week their flagship Lumia 800 launched in the UK and Orange, one of the major mobile carriers in the country, announced a record number of pre-order sales for a Nokia device.  To be sure it was helped by a promotion where people could get a free Xbox 360 but that is not the only reason:  50% of the pre-orders were from existing Nokia customers.

You can read the full article over at WinRumors.com

If there is a dark side of all our computing power, social networking and email-on-all-the-time, it is the impact this has on battery power.  This challenge has remained throughout many devices on multiple platforms and Windows Phone is no exception.  I jokingly stated on Twitter last night that 4G will only add to this problem.  Fortunately with the release of Windows Phone 7.5 (Mango), Microsoft has built in a way to save that precious battery power.  It is called the Battery Saver in your phone’s setup and in this How To I will show you how to set that up along with another battery saving tip.

This How To only applies to Windows Phones powered by the 7.5 update (Mango) as the feature I’m describing was added in Mango.

If you are looking for free but high quality wallpapers for your Windows Phone, look no further than Windows Phone 7 Wallpapers.  This site is relatively new but already has an impressive collection of wallpapers in a wide range of categories.  What makes the site unique though is how you download the wallpapers to your phone.

Most sites require that you download the wallpaper image that you want then sync it to your  Phone via Zune to get it on your device.  WP 7 Wallpapers for  has made it much easier.  Each wallpaper image has a Microsoft Tag image next to it.  By using the Microsoft Tag App on your Windows Phone or Bing Vision on your Windows Phone running Mango, you can scan the tag and download it directly to your phone.  Quick and easy!

Windows Phone 7 Wallpapers

To be sure there are some wallpapers offered on the site that are a bit risqué so parents should be aware.  Overall the quality of the wallpapers is impressive and the collection is growing rapidly.

Check out Windows Phone 7 Wallpapers