Microsoft and Nokia announced the development of Windows Phone 7.8 to Lumia owners at the same time that they announced that these phone would not be getting the possibility of a Windows 8 upgrade due to Microsoft developing WIndows 8 from an entirely new kernel.
It has been a long wait for this update to come to Windows Phone 7.5 devices such as the relatively popular Nokia Lumia 800 and 900,. But this wait is finally over as Nokia have announced that the WP7.8 update is finally being pushed around the world to owners of Nokia Lumia 510, 610, 710, 800 and 900 smartphones.
It is now up to each mobile phone network to send the update out to their customers after making their various changes and customisation – but some networks are already well ahead with these, such as O2 in the UK that has had the Windows Phone 7.8 build ready for their support staff for weeks.
The Windows Phone 7.8 upgrade brings to a number of new features to the Lumia devices, including greater customisation of the colour and size of the tiles on the homescreen, as well as better integration with Nokia Maps, and most usefully the ability to change the default search engine to Google. Sorry Microsoft, mobile Bing is really not there yet.
Nokia LUmia owners can check whether their network has released the update yet by plugging their device into their computers and looking for updates within Zune.