MOBILE REVIEW: Nokia Lumia 822 and Windows 8
WILMINGTON, NC (WECT) - The new Nokia Lumia 822 is one of two smartphones that Verizon Wireless is carrying that runs Windows 8.
I have been testing it out for the last few days, and I wanted to give my first impressions.
First of all, it's simple. It's so simple that one may argue it's complicated. If you're a Facebook user, you may not like the way the social media site appears on the phone. It is nothing like you've seen on the web, so you'll have to re-train your brain. But, it is pretty.
One of the first big differentiating factors is the Live Tiles feature. The intent is to make the phone easy to navigate. You can also rearrange and resize the tiles, and they're neat to watch because the pictures of your contacts will scroll on your screen.
The phone boasts other features, such as Live Apps that provide you with weather, sports and flight info without draining your battery.
There's also a Kid's Corner, which allows you to share apps and music with your kids while password protecting some other stuff and keeping unsavory Internet content from your tikes.
Other features? There's SkyDrive, which gives you 7GB of online storage that you can access from any Windows PC. There's also, DataSense - basically, a way to reduce your data usage by a third.
A big time bonus is that the OS offers full integration with Windows PCs and tablets and Microsoft Office Suite. So, that means that supposedly, anything you can do on your PC, you can do on your phone. And honestly, let's face it. Most of us are still PC users, especially in the workplace.
That being said, if you're used to Android or Apple, the apps available here may fall short. Although the Windows Phone 8 has around 120,000 apps in the Windows Store, you may not see the ones you're used to. Instagram was one of them I missed, though I read that it could be coming soon.
Also - as a heavy Google user, this was hard to adjust to. There is no Google Plus app, but you can access it on the web. The problem is that it doesn't look or operate the same - you can't join hangouts, much less host them.
And, the honest truth, I felt like I had to use Bing. And, the honest truth, I didn't want to. Of course there are ways around that, but then you're talking about one more step. I just downloaded the Google app, but I wonder how many times Bing comes up as your default option when searching for an item on the phone.
Another bonus though - the camera is awesome. It takes really good pictures. The camera has a nice picture quality.
Overall, I do like the phone. It's beautiful, it runs well, and it's affordable. It's available at Verizon for $99.99 with a new 2-year contract. I heard someone say it's the perfect phone if Android overwhelms you. To me, it's a good phone for someone who may not be heavy into apps or need Facebook to survive. But, I could see this phone certainly being useful and fun.
Special thanks to Verizon Wireless for letting us take it for a test spin. If you've got further questions, send them to us.
Follow: @MichelleLiTV on Twitter and Facebook.
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