Though Redmond's been pretty quiet about Windows Mobile 7, a few tidbits have been leaked to the scene lately. Add these to bunch: Over the weekend, Engadget got its hands on a few images that look ? well, inconsistent to say the least. The pics show different designs, so these could be conceptual layouts at best, or fanboy wishlist manifestations at worst. You be the judge.

Either way, it's interesting. There are some good things here ? like clean design and a user-friendly UI ? so hopefully, these might show some indications of where WinMo 7 could head. That would be the good news. The bad is the fact that, in two of the layouts, it looks like the designer had no idea where to stick the battery, volume or signal strength indicators, so it got slapped in at the bottom, i.e. beneath where the users? thumbs would be. (Seems a bit cramped down there, no?)

Even so, it's great to see that there might be more in the works for the WinMo crowd. But if you?re hoping that CTIA will reveal some truthiness about 7, you may be disappointed. It's simply too soon after the 6.5 debut. Still, that OS is pretty solid, and indications seem good that the company's already working on an enhanced OS, so there's lots to look forward to.