To help you get ready for the release of the first Nokia Windows Phones at Nokia World 2011 this week, in the next of our series of in-depth looks at Windows Phone 7.5 Mango we’ve been looking at the Windows Phone Music Player to see just how it works when compared to playing music on a Symbian smartphone.

Windows Phone 7.5 Mango: Top 10 must have features

The procedure for adding music to Windows Phone 7.5 Mango is very similar to that of Symbian. While Symbian uses the Nokia Ovi Suite (soon to be called Nokia Suite) to manage your audio files, Nokia Windows Phones use Microsoft’s Zune software. Both install easily and provide a clear, intuitive user interface.

As with Symbian, Windows Phone supports a wide range of audio codecs, so you’re not just limited to using MP3’s. As well as MP3 and WMA, you can also enjoy listening to WAV and MP4 files, among many others, so you can make a smooth and easy transition from your Symbian phone to Windows Phone.

Once you’ve connected your Nokia Windows Phone to your PC and it has been detected and set up by the Zune software, you can begin transferring your audio files. The easy drag and drop approach makes it simple to choose which files you want, or you can simply synchronise your full music collection.

Once your music is copied across to your Nokia Windows Phone, you can then easily access it by tapping the Music+Videos tile found on the Windows Phone 7.5 Mango Start screen. This opens Windows Phone’s default media browser and player and lets you have quick access to all your new media files.

Music+Videos is split into three screens, which you can navigate by swiping your finger left and right. The first is the default Zune screen. This gives you access to a simple vertically scrollable text menu, which lets you browse all content currently on your phone, as well as browse content located online.

The Zune page is split into five options – Music, Videos, Podcasts, Radio and Marketplace - giving you quick access to all content that you have synchronised with your Nokia Windows Phone and letting you enjoy new content online or via the radio. Tapping on any one of them opens the option in its own dedicated page.

The music interface lets you browse your music by artist, album, song, playlist and genre, all by swiping to the left or right. While similar to how you browse music in Symbian, the big difference is Windows Phone’s smooth animations and intuitive navigation system, which makes browsing your files a pleasure.

Tapping a song or an album starts it playing and the clean interface gives you access to standard options such as play, pause, forward, back, shuffle and repeat from the main music screen. To move to the next or previous song, you can also just swipe your finger left or right, to navigate through your music even faster.

When you’re in the mood for a certain type of music, but can’t be bothered to choose all the music yourself, you can use Windows Phone 7.5 Mango’s Smart DJ feature to choose your songs for you. All you have to do is choose one song or album and a smart playlist of similar music is automatically created based on the genre and artist you selected.

Choosing music directly from your collection and even automatically going online to choose songs you might like from the extensive Zune music catalogue - if you have a Zune Music Pass subscription – Smart DJ makes a great way to hear music that you may otherwise not have been exposed to and to relax with great tunes, without the effort of having to browse and select them.

To start Smart DJ, all you have to do is choose a song and tap it to start playing. You can then tap the More button at the bottom right of the screen to see the option to Play Smart DJ Mix. One tap of this is all it takes for your Nokia Window Phone to compile and play a new Smart DJ playlist for you.

And if you want to buy new music when you’re on the move, Windows Phone 7.5 Mango makes that easy too. From the main Music+Video interface, you can either click Marketplace to browse the latest music at the online Zune Marketplace, or you can search for specific artists so you can find the music you want.

Making it easier than ever to enjoy music on your Nokia Windows Phone, Windows Phone 7.5’s simple, yet great looking interface is a joy to use.  We’ll be covering how to use the Windows Phone Music+Video app to browse your videos, podcasts and listen to the radio in later instalments, so stay tuned.

And we’ll also be bringing you more Windows Phone 7.5 vs. Symbian comparisons, as well as guides to all the new great features that will be coming to Nokia Windows Phones when they're released at Nokia World 2011 this week, so why not let us know if there are any features in particular that you’d like us to tell you more about?

Check out our Windows Phone 7.5 Mango music player photo gallery: