It seems that Christmas has come early for us here at the Microsoft Innovation Centre!

Look at what we found last week: Yes, this is none other than the prototype LG Panther devices that have been seen in the wild for the past week or so. Here are some more photos, including the box that it came in:

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Where did we get these devices from?

Well, we wished we could say that we found it at a local Starbucks because someone left it there after a caffeine high, but in reality these were sent to us so we can start testing our Windows Phone 7 applications in Singapore on an actual device instead of only using the emulator.

A few early observations:

  • This is definitely still a prototype device, and there are still quite a few rough edges to be fixed. The device OS is still being updated with new builds almost every other day.
  • Even the packaging and box is expected to be different before the final product ships. For example, the current box is not even using the correct Windows Phone 7 logo.
  • Despite it's prototype status, the phone appears to be more or less feature complete and incredibly responsive and fast. The animations are all very smooth.
  • For the time being, you need a special build of the desktop Zune software (Dorado) to sync with the device; the current released version of desktop Zune software won't work.
  • The camera works pretty well, and the resulting photo is sharp, as you can see below:
So there you have it. We now have two (yes, two) prototype Windows Phone 7 devices here at the Microsoft Innovation Centre in Singapore.

If you are currently developing applications for Windows Phone 7, we would be happy to loan you the device to use at our Microsoft Innovation Centre so you can test out your applications on something more real than the software emulator. If you would like to try out your app with these devices, please refer to the details on this post and submit a CFP.

And if you are not developing applications for Windows Phone 7, you should start right away! Download the developer tools today. Also, if you are a student under the Microsoft DreamSpark program, the fee for submitting applications into the Windows Phone Marketplace is waived!