Hands on with the 7.8 OS update for AT&T's Nokia Lumia 900

Although Microsoft has not yet said anything official on the Windows Phone 7.8 Global Rollout, we are expecting devices to be begin getting updates around January 31^st.

As we reported yesterday, Nokia has uploaded their OS update for the AT&T Nokia Lumia 900 (review), one of the most high profile devices of 2012. We decided to take it for a spin.

The update is what it was rumored to be: new Tile options and a few other additions. There are no surprises here, folks.

Other new features include:

• New Accent colors, matching Windows Phone 8, bringing the total to 20 + 1
• Bing Wallpaper of the day, which will auto-update your lockscreen image. Sadly developers to not have access to this, meaning we don’t expect 3^rd party 7.8 apps to have this feature.
• New boot screen with updated WIndows Phone logo
• New Office logo, though OneNote is not a seperate app like in WP8

There is no Wi-Fi keep-alive feature, no SMS-call reject and Internet Explorer as far as we can tell is exactly the same. In addition, Office and Zune Music were not updated to either current version or with their rebranding.

The oddest thing is how AT&T opted to have the “look” of the 7.8 match 7.5, meaning on a fresh install you can’t even tell there are different Tile sizes. Users will essentially have to discover this new change on their own.

Although we may sound a bit down on 7.8, we will emphasize that one of the biggest “experiences” with Windows Phone 8 is those new Tiles and Accent colors. If you think about it, it’s the number one thing you interact with on a daily basis. In other words, although this update is light on new features, the ones included will go a long way in making your phone “feel new”. That’s just from our personal experience.

AT&T has not given an official date on this update for the Lumia 900 or other Windows Phones, though seeing as the update is waiting on Nokia’s servers we believe AT&T will be one of the first carriers to deliver to users.

Stay tuned for more.