If you happened to miss the Mango (7.5) VIP event last week (shame on you), a number of requested features were shown off in the presentation. Not all 500, which were promised by Steve Ballmer, but some 50-odd (give or take a few). While the ones shown were enough to maintain the hype and excitement for Mango, which is expected to produce a more complete OS, we have just found out that the Japanese Microsoft site had posted some screen captures on their homepage of features that were absent from the VIP event.

We have a few that LiveSide managed to pick up and take a look at, skip on past the break to check them out and remember to click the images on the right for a larger view. 

Linked Group Event Scheduling

On the right-hand side you can see a linked contact group, but did you notice the "schedule an event" at underneath the email option? This wasn't shown at the preview event.

Threaded Email

We have witnessed the addition of threaded email in Mango via demos and we're aware of the "..." that indicates a conversation. In the image to the right you can see that a "+" symbol was used. The change to dot-dot-dot is welcomed and is more fluent with the OS.
Conversation Switching

To the right you'll see the switching menu (when in conversations) to determine where you're message will be sent to. As you can see, you can select landline numbers, but this has since been removed. Not sure why, especially for those who can text landline numbers (UK for example).
Conversation Switching Icon

The fully integrated IM/SMS conversation feature is up next featuring the "switch" icon to the left of the input-box. As seen in demos this icon is located on the task bar.
Pinned Tiles

Lastly we have a few pinned tiles that are out of the ordinary. Notice the linked SmartDJ playlist at the top and the location tile (with distance calculation) above the emails?

While the OS demoed at the VIP event, along with previous events and in videos around the web aren't by any means final, it's rather interesting to see if features have been introduced then withdrawn between presentations or potential candidates hidden for the 500 feature count. Since there are many features that haven't been demoed as-of-yet (over 400 of them), ones like the pinned tile example above would make sense to be included in the update.

What do you think of the screen captures above, and would you prefer the above over what's been demoed?

Source Microsoft, via: LiveSide