Lumia 800 seen running Windows Phone 7.8

With the imminent release of devices running Windows Phone 8, users of Microsoft’s current phone OS – Windows Phone 7 – are feeling left behind. Microsoft hopes to appease some Windows Phone 7 users with the Windows Phone 7.8 update, which will add many under-the-hood tweaks to the OS, along with giving the OS the same UI as the Windows Phone 8. Recently, the forum administrator for windowsmania.pl has posted a video and pictures of a Nokia Lumia 800 that is running what looks like Windows Phone 7.8.

The video mostly showcases the new customisation options in the new version of Windows Phone 7. The update sports the same homescreen as Windows Phone 8 and has features such as resizable tiles. The video doesn’t show any of the tweaks that the update will have under the hood, though. The admin of the forums, who goes by the handle DjTonka, insists that it is the real deal, but has said that he will not be making the ROM available just yet.

The Lumia 800 running Windows Phone 7.8

Windows Phone 8 had recently passed into the RTM (release to manufacturers) phase. There’s no official date of launch for Windows Phone 8 just yet, but the news of the RTM build being final means that phone manufacturers and OEMs should be receiving this final build of the OS real soon. The first of the phones are expected to hit markets sometime in November this year. So far, the officially announced smartphones to ship with the Windows Phone 8 OS are Samsung’s ATIV S and Nokia’s own Lumia 920 and 820 models.

There are quite a few improvements over the older version. Here are some of the highlighted features that users can expect to find on Windows Phone 8: