The chaps over at Neowin take an extensive look at a prototype Windows Phone 7 device running the Windows Phone operating system. Here's an excerpt:

Windows Phone 7 is a solid product, and it's not even out yet. The developer/prototype devices are obviously not the ones that the platform will hit on its final release, but we were impressed with how quick and stable the whole thing ran even at this stage.

A few areas are worrying, with the lack of Twitter, Flash, Silverlight and HTML5 video at launch, it's not clear what Microsoft's game plan is here. As a heavy user of Youtube & Twitter on Android, it seems hard to imagine life without it. There's potential that Microsoft might be intending on using the Zune hub as a way to manage video, but it's not clear yet.

As of writing, there were no Xbox Live arcade games we could try (or even gawk at) which was extremely disappointing, though the gaming platform looks promising.

Strict Marketplace rules may cause developers to lose interest in the platform as it could be “too hard” to create something easily, and the lack of multitasking could be frustrating, but in our experience during the hands on, it wasn't as frustrating as some made out.

As previously mentioned, the small things count, and are surprisingly important. The animations on the home screen tiles add a great deal to the experience --the emoticons that change based on the new messages waiting in messaging (or, that change to a sad face if it doesn't send), the Xbox Live avatar on the home screen – these things all amount to an immersive, interactive, and intuitive experience, where the phone really feels like it's yours.