Microsoft brings Marketplace to your PC

It's still a good few laps behind Apple's race-leading App Store, but Windows Marketplace has started its comeback with a long overdue browser-based version of the store.

The Marketplace for Mobile site lets you shop for apps on your desktop PC, and niftily wirelessly syncs them with your WinMo phone.

The site itself is cleanly designed and easy to navigate, though the paucity of apps in certain areas – three in 'Maps', and a lonely one in 'Books' – reveals that this market needs a lorry-load of stock to fill up the bare shelves.

Still, the improved Marketplace anti-piracy protection and developer-friendly tweaks from today's update should help, as will phones like the HTC HD2 – we'll have a full review very soon, but in the meantime check out our hands-on video.