Windows Phone 7.8 Lands on Nokia Lumia 800

UPDATE: This report turned out to be premature. For more information, please go to this article: Windows Phone 7.8 Update Only on Pre-Production Handsets; Won't Be Available Until 2013

The official update to Windows Phone 7.8 has begun rolling out to Lumia 800 models, at least over in Europe, marking the first delivery of the stopgap version of Microsoft's mobile OS to existing Windows Phone 7 smartphones.

A Dutch website recently reported that Nokia has begun rolling out the update to users with its Lumia 800 handsets via the Zune desktop software (sadly, receiving updates OTA is a feature that's new to the Windows Phone 8 platform). When the update is available for your phone, users reportedly receive a "Nokia update" followed by four larger downloads.

Though many of the aspects of Windows Phone 8 are not available in Windows Phone 7.8 due to hardware restrictions, users with 7.8 will still be able to enjoy a number of new features that mostly revolve around customization. These include new color schemes, a new tile size option, and a new Xbox Live Tile.

For more about Windows Phone 7.8, read this overview. You might also be interested in our review of the Lumia 800.

Source: Engadget