We’ve been debating for a while now whether there would be a Windows Mobile 6.5 Standard (non-touchscreen). Since most of the changes for 6.5 Professional (touchscreen) are to increase finger-friendliness, it didn’t make sense that the non-touchscreen version would ever see the update. Well, it will be updated to 6.5.

So, what’s different? Here’s the list:

1. The default color scheme is the black with none-3D bars (pictured)

2. IE Mobile operates much like Skyfire with a mouse cursor. The default search engine is Bing

3. There is a new internet favorites panel of the sliding home screen. Other than that, the home screen is unchanged

4. Marketplace and widget support is included

5. The waiting cursor is the new “four colored dots style”

It seems that with such a small list of changes, Microsoft should have gone with “Windows Mobile 6.2 Standard”. That said, this news means that we will see more devices like the HTC Snap come around when 6.5 starts to ship.

For more screenshots, check out Nikita Polyakov’s blog.

(via: XDA)