LG shows off world's first Windows Phone 7 handset

Microsoft's director of mobile communications, Aaron Woodman, used the Engadget Show, to show off a pre-production Windows Phone 7 handset designed by LG.

The LG handset featured a slide out QWERTY keyboard, and was nearly as thin as an iPhone or a Google Nexus One smartphone. The handset featured a five megapixel camera and flash on the back of its casing, a headphone jack, as well as volume and power switches and 'back', 'home' and search buttons. The LG smartphone looked rather like LG's GW990, which uses an Intel Atom CPU (rather than an ARM-designed processor, which most smartphones use) and runs MeeGo, a new smartphone OS designed by Intel and Nokia.

Microsoft's Windows Phone 7 OS is a complete rewrite of the company's ageing Windows Mobile OS, which had fallen behind competition from the likes of the iPhone and Android platforms. Windows Phone 7's user interface borrows quite heavily from the interface Microsoft designed for its Zune music player, and comes with large stylised text menus and smooth animation and support for multitouch control is built in from the ground up.

In an effort to create some kind of consistent look and feel for Windows Phone 7, Microsoft is believed to be limiting the number of third party handset vendors who can license the OS. Other partners announced so far include HTC, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Toshiba, Qualcomm, HP, Dell and Garmin-Asus.

Not all the partners will necessarily develop smartphones with Windows Phone 7; indeed LG, which has committed to producing around 50 Windows Phone 7 devices over the next two years, and these may include ebook readers, and a slate device to compete with Amazon's Kindle and Apple's iPad respectively.

Microsoft recently signed a cross-licensing deal for patents with Amazon, which industry insiders have speculated was intended to clear potential legal blocks to producing an ebook reader.