Tango coming to China in March, lose Xbox Live, Facebook and Twitter features

February 18, 2012 | By Surur

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA Chinese Windows Phone website WPDang has broken some more news about the increasingly scooped Windows Phone Tango update.

Apparently all Mango devices can be updated to Tango, and in China special modifications will be included.

These changes include :

Tango of China would have the Xbox Live function removed
WeiBo (Chinese version of Twitter) and RenRen (Chinese version of Facebook) would be used to replace Twitter and Facebook which cannot be accessed in China
Bing search result would be based on a combination of Bing and BaiDu, the Chinese no.1 search engine

Tango will be announced at Mobile World Congress 2012 and will launch in Beijing in China at an event in the 3rd week of March, attended by HTC, Nokia, ZTE and LG. The OEMS will be showing their Tango-powered devices off there.

It is not clear if the Chinese Marketplace will open at the same time, but when it does there will be 2 additional methods besides paying by credit card to pay for apps.

About Surur

Site Admin and Windows Phone enthusiast, he has been using Windows Mobile devices since before they were called PocketPC’s. He is currently sporting a HTC 7 Trophy.

Tagged china, rumour, tango, windows phone 7.75

Anonymous

Quite different? The only noticeable difference is the lag of XBL and I could definitely live with it.
Anonymous

What is the point? Without Facebook, Twitter, and Xbox Live, it’s not even a Windows Phone. This whole Tango update crap is going to turn out to be a massive mistake. All they’re doing is fragmenting the hell out of Windows Phone. They are introducing phones that won’t play certain app, and won’t be updated to future versions of the operating system.

Windows Phone already had low enough requirements to put out low end and mid-range phones. Idiotic decision on Microsoft’s part to satisfy Nokia. Microsoft should have told Nokia to use Symbian as their low end system, because Windows Phone is not a low end OS. It’s a mid-range to high-end platform.

All Microsoft is doing is turning Windows Phone into Android, and their customer satisfaction ratings are going to drop because of it.

http://www.facebook.com/ellis.w.brown Ellis W. Brown Jr.

Tango is not for the US market. Did you read china Facebook and twitter is CANNOT be accssed in china. So why do they need Facebook and twitter on there phones?

You need to look outside the box, the world is not just USA.

Anonymous

You do realize there are more emerging markets than China? Tango is not just for China. It’s also for countries like Brazil, India, etc. Tango is for many more markets around the world, and not just China.

It’s a mistake. Again, fragmentation is never a good thing. Windows Phone is optimized enough to make cheap handsets. Hell, by today’s standards, first generation Windows Phones are at best mid-range phones.

Anonymous

They will have different flavor of Tango for non-Chinese markets, I can guarantee.(if above is true about exclusion of FB and Twitter from Chinese Tango).
India is a huge market for Nokia, and they will never allow Tango to be with Chinese equivalents of FB/Twitter for India. This is definitely one of the fruits of Nokia’s insistence on localization which has bear them fruits in the past with Symbian success.
Anonymous

I thought the article said the changes are China-specific. Did I read the article correctly?

http://twitter.com/Xplorer_7 Lukas Greb

Please all you people stfu…First: In one sentence you say: “had [..] requirements to put out low end and mid-range phones”And later you say: “It’s a mid-range to high-end platform.” Here one can see you are talkning BS have no idea what you are talking about.
The problem is: You guys just don´t get it, that devices you and me estimate as low-end, are just not low-end to people in countries like china.
Also Facebook and Twitter is forbidden in China, so they get the alternatives most people use there. The Xbox Live part is probably excluded because of the same “china-gov-sucks” reasons.
That means: They have the option to have no one buy those phones in china OR as many as in EU/USA/etc. even if they are a bit reduced or changed in function.
All you guys don´t seem to know what fragmentation really means…

Anonymous

Read my post above dumbass. Tango is not just for the Chinese market. Second, it’s you who have no clue what fragmentation is. It’s already been noted that these low end devices won’t be able to utilize many of the apps in Windows Phone Marketplace. Microsoft has already said this. That is the very definition of fragmentation. Many if not most of these phones also won’t be upgraded to newer versions of the OS either. Again, that is fragmentation.

Anonymous

the removal of facebook and twitter and the addition of weibo and renren is just Chinese only. Tango for other countries will not remove facebook and twitter, or if they did it they’d probably replace it with localized alternatives.
So yes, tango is not just for china, but the removal of facebook and twitter are.
https://twitter.com/#!/HotmailAlias Hotmail Alias

Joe, its you who’s the dumbass here. And maybe that’s partly because you’re being carried away by the misleading title of the article. Read the article again please. It doesn’t say that Tango will not have XBL, FB, Twitter and Bing. It says that phones in China will have special modifications, i.e., the above features replaced by RenRen, WeiBo and Bing+BaiDu. Those are CHINA SPECIFIC fetures, not Tango features.

Surur, you could do well by changing the title here. Make it like… “Tango coming to China in March, to feature Local App Integration”.

Anonymous

Facebook and Twitter are blocked in China so they are being replaced with their Chinese equivalence, Renren and Sina Weibo.

Hassan

Hey, where did you learn about the 120 languages support?
A link is appreciated. Thanks.

http://twitter.com/efjay01 Ef Jay

Only thing Chinese Tango users will miss is xbl, they won’t “miss” Facebook or twitter since they can’t access them anyway.

Anonymous

Xbox Live is not available in China

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RSK4Z4DM6PNE6K3JIDAMURONCU Arun

I hope these Tango devices are not mere updgraded Mango phones. Then it would mean new devices from HTC and ZTE. Sad, Huawei is not in the list
Anonymous

miseading title is misleading. Facebook and Twitter will have substitues for more widely used services in that country.

http://twitter.com/counterblow the person

Facebook and Twitter will have substitues for more widely CENSORED services in that country.

there, fixed it for ya

http://twitter.com/eskeemo Kee

so what? it’s ok, business is business, you want money – you play by china rules)

http://twitter.com/counterblow the person

yep, suppressing basic human rights….anything for a buck!

Mestiphal

what would you propose? Microsoft can’t change the way China works. they either offer it with their services or don’t.

Microsoft is not supressing the freedom of speech, their government is. At least Microsoft is giving them the services they do have access to….

Either way, do you think that if Microsoft were to integrate Vonage before Skype, everybody would drop Skype and get Vonage? no, because no one uses it, thus no one cares about it.

If you give them facebook and tweeter, they would still use their services just because that is what they’ve always used.

Anonymous

…That has nothing to do with anything…Microsoft didn’t censor them. That’s like saying “US windows phone to lack RenRen and Weibo feautures” if Chinese can’t use facebook or twitter becuase of laws there, what would be the point of providing the service?

http://pulse.yahoo.com/_RSK4Z4DM6PNE6K3JIDAMURONCU Arun

Hey which is the phone in the pic. Looks like those buttons are capacitive touch and not physical

Anonymous

Nokia Lumia 800.

http://twitter.com/laserfloyd Lewis McCrary

Do. want.

http://twitter.com/counterblow the person

Tango….now with less freedom of speech
Anonymous

Anyone have any idea if Windows Phone will support China Mobile’s TD-SCDMA?