Nokia users have a lot to look forward to in Windows Phone Mango – after all, it contains upwards of 500 changes to Microsoft's already formidable mobile OS. Today we continue our in-depth analysis at some of those changes by taking a closer look at the web browser and on-board search.

Windows Phone Mango Hands-on: What Nokia users have to look forward to

When it comes to browsing the web, there's probably no piece of software on the planet more well known than Internet Explorer. A mobile version of IE is present and correct in Windows Phone 7 as it is, but one of the most significant updates of all in Mango is that the IE browser on board is actually the same as the full desktop version, complete with graphics acceleration and HTML 5 support.

This is expected to deliver a significantly faster and richer browsing experience than we've ever seen on mobile devices before, so it's certainly going to be something to look forward to on the Nokia Windows Phone.

Other changes over the existing Windows Phone browser include that the address bar has moved to the bottom of the screen, while all other functions have moved to the pop-up menu that requires a tap to bring up on screen.

Along with the existing messaging and email options, you can now share web pages via social networks too thanks to an update to IE's Share command. So far Windows Live, Facebook and LinkedIn have been added, but we expect the likes of Twitter to be present in the final version too.

As for search, the big change in Windows Phone Mango is that the hardware search button now pulls up a Bing search window no matter what you're doing at the time, rather than being a contextual search function, as before.

For example, if you were browsing your Facebook contacts in the past and pressed the Search button, it would automatically allow you to search for names in your contacts. In Mango, however, it will simply bring up a Bing web search window.

Instead, Mango now introduces contextual search options on screen where appropriate, which serves the dual purpose of both making you aware when contextual search is available and also making Bing just a single button press away no matter where you are.

To go with its more prominent status, however, comes a bunch of new features too. Bing Vision, for instance, turns the camera on and you can point it at the likes of books, bar codes, QR codes and the like. Search results will appear over the image, and you can then tap the one you want more info on.

Another interesting addition is Music Search, which will listen to a song that is playing and – if it recognises it – pop up the album image on screen, along with basic info on the song title and artist, plus a Marketplace button that goes through to download or purchase the song.

There's no question that Microsoft's experience with web and search software shines through in these exciting new additions to Windows Phone Mango, and our thanks once again goes to PocketNow for its extensive preview of the new OS.

We'd love to hear from you, though: from a Nokia user's point of view, which of these new additions do you think is the most impressive? Give us your thoughts in the Comments!