Finally, IE 7 beta can be downloaded from http://www.microsoft.com/windows/IE/ie7/ie7betaredirect.mspx if you have a genuine windows XP (SP2) system.
The download and installation were smooth but required restart. The first look after running it reminded me of Opera. It has a new look and offers new features. However, these features may not be new to someone using Firefox or Opera. There is tabbed browsing, meaning no need to open various windows to open different URLs (Incidentally, when it crashed all the tabs were closed.). It has built in search window at the top that even allows you to use google. There is an RSS feed reader and overall a nice aesthetic look. The button to open new tab is not so obvious at the first look. There were also a few bugs that I noticed, like cursor not showing at appropriate place and text not showing even though it is typed in black in white background and occasional crashes. IE 7 beta had difficulty in running a Java based live classes application that ran without any problem in Firefox. I hope Microsoft takes care of these issues when IE 7 goes out of beta.
Note: The screenshot contains the 123iitjee.com toolbar.