Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh – the official name for WP7 Tango.

We’ve been hearing about Windows Phone Tango for a while now and how it will enable OEMs to build cheaper handsets. We now learn that Tango is just the codename for this next build and when it launches, the official name will be ‘Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh’. Unlike Mango, which actually became the official name, the same won’t apply to the next version. The news comes from windowsphoneitaly.com, who confirmed this during an interview with Stephanie Duico, Windows Phone Business Group Lead at Microsoft Italy. While ‘Refresh’ isn’t as cool a name as Tango, we kind of see the reason for this. As the name suggests, the new version of WP7 is a small update and hence the version number remains 7.5. The ‘Refresh’ tag only suggests that the OS is capable of running on lower end phone as well.

Windows Phone 7.5 Refresh is not due for a few months now and going by what we saw at MWC 2012, Nokia’s Lumia 610 will be one of the first devices in the market to come with the new OS. There were rumours on the pricing being as low as Rs.11,000 upon launch, which is not too far-fetched considering the Lumia 710 is now hovering around the Rs.15,000 mark. This opens a whole new market for Microsoft, as they can now go after the mainstream crowd, which is currently being dominated by Android. WP 7.5 Refresh promises to deliver the same buttery smooth experience, despite the reduction in hardware specification and they achieve this by reducing the number of background processes.

With that out of the way, fewer CPU cycles are taken and lesser RAM is needed as well. When asked about Windows Phone Apollo or Windows Phone 8, Stephanie refused to comment on this (obviously), but she did say that all the current apps will be compatible with the Apollo. Whether or not current phones will be upgradable to Apollo is yet to be seen. Since Apollo appears to be the next big change in the OS, we doubt whether WP 7.5 Refresh handsets will be compatible with it. We assume Microsoft will be working on another stripped down version of Apollo for this, something that will offer most of the newer features, but yet, be able to run on slower hardware.