[texantony]

I'm glad to see a positive article among all those "fanboy" reporters.

The Windows Phone 8 Start Screen Is the Best of Any Phone

[baseballbert]

Great article, can't wait for 7.8!

Sent from my Lumia 900 using Board Express

[AngryNil]

I find it ugly. Many people found the original start screen to be too much accent colour in one place, and here you will find even more. This is information overload, and it loses the beautiful asymmetry. Quite frankly reminds me of those Metro-esque home screen mockups you'd see popping up on the Internet either as skins for WinMo / Android or made by some guy who doesn't understand design.

I'd be satisfied if they gave the option to bring back the right bar (subsequently, all the tiles would have to scale slightly). Honest opinion coming from a Metro enthusiast, but I'll probably get hate anyway. Fire away!

[texantony]

I find it ugly. Many people found the original start screen to be too much accent colour in one place, and here you will find even more. This is information overload, and it loses the beautiful asymmetry. Quite frankly reminds me of those Metro-esque home screen mockups you'd see popping up on the Internet either as skins for WinMo / Android or made by some guy who doesn't understand design.

I'd be satisfied if they gave the option to bring back the right bar (subsequently, all the tiles would have to scale slightly). Honest opinion coming from a Metro enthusiast, but I'll probably get hate anyway. Fire away!

You always have the option to keep the look of the current Windows Phone by selecting medium size tiles.

[AngryNil]

You always have the option to keep the look of the current Windows Phone by selecting medium size tiles.

The tiles are now comparatively larger because they stretch across the whole screen. You can pretty much only fit 6 medium tiles now; it used to be 8. If Microsoft provides the option to restore the blank bar to the right, I'm satisfied.

[iloveamystery]

I feel like the home screens shown in the summit weren't very well organized. If you put all of the small tiles in one section, or all on one side (as opposed to on the left and right which I saw in one screen cap), then I think the start screen would be a lot more aesthetically pleasing. I like the idea of having more information without needing to scroll at all, but I think allowing the WP7 home screen as an option would also be a smart choice.

[psiu_glen]

The user adjustable tiles is a nice idea, but losing the negative space on the right irritates me. It was a clear and subtle clue (well, along with the arrow) that something was over there. The little bounce when you hit the bottom was nice too.

[doublebullout]

I'll disagree. The gutter always irritated me because it was wasted space. I don't need a visual reminder that there's something "over there." After you use WP7 for more than 10 minutes, how can you forget?

Great article link. Thanks for posting!

[AwesomeAndy]

The tiles are now comparatively larger because they stretch across the whole screen. You can pretty much only fit 6 medium tiles now; it used to be 8. If Microsoft provides the option to restore the blank bar to the right, I'm satisfied.

Good point. So the gutter is actually not a waste of space - it actually increases the number of medium tiles on the screen.

I hope they make the gutter optional, but i guess not since it would likely make small tiles too small. But one can only hope..

[Winterfang]

I wouldn't say better, but it looks really functional. I can get my entire pinned catalogue on the main screen. No more scrolling for this guy :-D.

[nicewabbit]

I think it looks great, on the Lumia too. Engadget has their gallery of the Lumia running 7.8 here:
Visualized: Nokia Lumia 900 running Windows Phone 7.8 (update: full eyes-on!) -- Engadget

Don't think I will miss the gutter one bit. Cannot believe so many folks are so passionate about that tiny space :)

Although, I am curious to see how the live tiles would work with 3-digit email counts in the smallest size of icon. Would we have to sacrifice counts for size?

[turbulent28]

I think it looks great, on the Lumia too. Engadget has their gallery of the Lumia running 7.8 here:
Visualized: Nokia Lumia 900 running Windows Phone 7.8 (update: full eyes-on!) -- Engadget

Don't think I will miss the gutter one bit. Cannot believe so many folks are so passionate about that tiny space :)

Although, I am curious to see how the live tiles would work with 3-digit email counts in the smallest size of icon. Would we have to sacrifice counts for size?

re: email counts

i hope it doesnt cut off the number like it shows on a resized calendar. the pic shows the word calendar cut off. Not a big deal, but a small sized calendar displaying appointments would just be too much clutter.

But. Can always just keep it as a rectangle.


And for those who dont like the start screen, who are saying 7.8 is only a start screen, and are enamored with their empty space on the right...

dont upgrade and problem solved

[Winterfang]

I'm watching the summit on my tv right now. The start screen is fantastic, finally a big messaging screen that actually shows me the text I get. Same with email.

[sdreamer]

I really think what MSFT showed at the Summit is just plain ugly, some were decent, but the first examples were really ugly. It just looks like a mosaic mess. I think it really depends on how it's arranged, because the first few examples, imo, totally backtrack on their whole premise of Metro being not just a buncha icons. With this, a user CAN make it a bunch of icons if they really wanted to. What's great though is you can customize it to still look really stream lined at least. So yeah I was put off by it at first, but when I saw better arrangements it started to grow on me again.