I know you love a good fight: two or more opponents duking it out to determine the ultimate champion has engaged the human race since their very beginnings*. Well, like the gladiators of old, I have a video of just such a tourney.

PocketMobile have pitched the browsing experience on the only WinPho 7 handset to date — the LG Panther — against the iPhone 4 and a Froyo-powered Nexus One.

The results? Speed-wise, WinPho7 holds up its own, beating both the Nexus One and iPhone to a complete page load (although the Nexus One displayed some text on-screen before the other two) on the first test, but coming last on the other tests.

However, there is so little a difference between the phones on all the tests, that it’s not really a clear victory for any device.

Unless, of course, you think about the old IE on WinMo 6.5 (*shudder*)… in which case this is like a rocket-ninja-powered victory for WinPho 7, especially as this isn’t yet final software.

But enough from me, you can watch the epic 10-minute battle for yourself, below.

*I have no actual data to back this claim up.

[via Phone Arena]

From time to time, I find myself traveling on the Metro here in Seattle. You see, I’m lazy, and poor, so I don’t drive and I don’t want to bike more than a couple miles. So it’s the bus for me. I use Android’s SeattleBusFinder, which works, but isn’t exactly a UI revelation. If I could use this slick, gorgeous, and practical bus tracker app instead, I’d be much happier (and might even take the bus more).

I mean, look at it! The question (to be investigated further) is this: will the curated, Zune HD-inspired apps be the glory and limit of WP7? That is to say, will they be the only reason to buy one of these phones? I hope not, but I can think of worse things that could happen to a phone.

[via WMPowerUser]

As anyone in the history of ever who has ever written a single line of code that might be subject to hacking knows, the only way to keep something “hidden” in an application is to just not include it at all. Sure, you can obfuscate the hell out of it out in the source code, or add some crazy configuration value that enables it; just don’t expect either of those to work for much longer than 5 minutes.

Either the WP7 team didn’t get that memo, or they’re perfectly comfortable with people unlocking a bunch of features in the emulator that didn’t come enabled by default.

A gent who’s now looking to have his name removed from the project managed to tear apart the ROM included with the WP7 development tools and flip a few switches that shouldn’t necessarily have been switched. Where as the original emulator set up would only show Internet Explorer and a tile or two, the hacked ROM brings out the Live Tiles, Voice Search, and Hubs. Better yet, it shows off a few fancy new features that have never been seen, including a file explorer and a task manager.

Pocketnow has a nice little write-up on how to get the hacked ROM up and running in your own emulator – but if you’re not feeling too tinkery, check out the shots of the file manager and task manager below.

Wowza. Consider me impressed. It took Microsoft 3 years to develop Windows Phone 7 Series — but its only taken 2 weeks for some far-too-talented dabbler to recreate the look and feel of the new OS as a skin for older Windows Mobile handsets, relying on nothing but screenshots and demo videos.

Get ready for tons of fake Windows Phone 7 videos and people saying “No! Seriously! I swear my buddy has Windows Phone 7 on his 3 year old WinMo handset!”.

While impressive as heck as a user-made mod, it’s important to clarify that this is just an interface tweak, built on top of Lakeridge Software’s WisBar Advance Desktop — it’s not a port of a Windows Phone 7 ROM or anything of the sort. Think of it like HTC’s TouchFlo interface: it’s fun to look at — but deep down, it’s still Windows Mobile 6.5 (in this case, running on a Toshiba TG01).

The man behind the mod, LeSScro, hasn’t released the mod for public consumption just yet – keep an eye on this thread at XDA Developers for its eventual release.

[Via PocketNow]