Excitement is piling up amid the release of Preview for Developers Windows Phone 8.1.

Coming along are its different fresh features summarized and recapped by Windows Phone Central with the 5 best (in alphabetical order) features as follows:

1. Calendar Enhancements

The new native calendar app that comes with Windows Phone 8.1 has new features to make more productive of the calendar, such as weather integration, week view and new designs.

2. Camera Enhancements

Windows Phone 8.1 comes with some camera enhancements, including new interface with quick access buttons for the settings plus a burst mode. The changes do make the camera more usable, making a lot of sense. You can directly access key settings from the viewfinder as it is somewhat tiresome to pull the settings up from the menu when you want to change the camera mode.

3. Cortana

From the video game Halo's fictional character, is the scene-stealing new feature, an intelligent personal assistant now in Windows Phone - Cortana. It already made appearances on talk shows like the Tonight Show and Arsenio Hall show.

As for the functionality, Cortana could accept both voice or type interface. It can help you plan for the day, check on the weather, place calls, give you reminders, tell a joke and many more. It seeks to serve you better like Google Now and Apple's Siri by your behavior, trying to foretell your needs and give you relevant data.

4. MicroSD Management

If your device has a microSD card slot, you can install apps and games to the card and better manage your onboard memory.

5. Notifications

Toast notifications in the form of little banners are pleasing features of Windows Phone platform. They slide across the upper part of the screen to alert you of sports scores, weather info, Instagram like, new SMS and many more.

But you can hear the toast sound. When you get your phone, the banner disappears. The new Notification center will store previous messages so you can check on them and delete plus a quick access tiles that you can customize for the settings. Windows Phone 8.1 comes with many appealing features. Other new features are so great such as Word flow keyboard, transparent Start Screen, automatic game or app updates and video editing.

Windows Phone Central has tapped the best five features. You can check on the new features yourself, have your own picks.