Nokia Lumia 822 (Verizon Wireless)

Hey, Nokia: Verizon Wireless barter absent you. The new Lumia 822 is the aboriginal Nokia buzz to hit the carrier in three years. It's a solid effort, and gives you a almost bargain way into the new Windows Buzz 8 world. But it's not the standout buzz Nokia—or, for that matter, Microsoft—needs on Verizon Wireless to absolutely advertise the platform.

Design and Connectivity

The Nokia Lumia 822 is actual agnate to the Lumia 810 over on T-Mobile. For added abstracts on the buzz itself, go apprehend that analysis first. Here, I'll mostly go over the differences amid the two models. The Lumia 822's physique looks a lot altered than the Lumia 810's. That's array of a acceptable thing, as the Lumia 822 has a white, angled anatomy that looks characteristic next to the absolutely accustomed Lumia 810's ellipsoidal atramentous housing. That said, it's still a adequately cheap-feeling artificial phone, with the barring of the bottle screen. It measures 5.03 by 2.69 by 0.42 inches (HWD) and weighs 4.99 ounces, which makes it anytime so hardly thinner and lighter than the Lumia 810.

You still get the aforementioned 4.3-inch, 800-by-480-pixel ClearBlack OLED screen, which is beautifully active but absolutely low-res next to today's high-definition 720p phones. The adapted ancillary of the buzz contains a Volume rocker, a Power button, and a Camera adjustment button. The disposable aback console contains a Carl Zeiss lens, a bifold LED flash, and a 4G LTE logo. With the adapted alternative cover, the Nokia Lumia 822 aswell supports wireless charging, which I'm not a huge fan of, aback you're affairs an added charging pad and again still active it into the wall. But some humans absolutely acknowledge the convenience, and it's nice the Lumia 822 supports it.

The Lumia 822 is a dual-band EV-DO Rev. A (850/1900 MHz), quad-band GSM (850/900/1800/1900MHz), and quad-band UMTS (850/900/1900/2100MHz) accessory with 4G LTE abstracts and 802.11a/b/g/n Wi-Fi. That makes it a accurate apple phone, and one that aswell supports accompanying articulation and data, clashing the Apple iPhone 5 on Verizon. The Lumia 822 can aswell act as a adaptable hotspot for up to eight accessories with the adapted abstracts plan. Analysis LTE speeds were absolutely poor in Manhattan, at 3-5Mbps down and 2-4Mbps up. But an iPhone 5 I had on duke aswell struggled to breach 6Mbps down on Verizon, so something was acutely up with the carrier's arrangement during testing.

Voice Quality, OS, and Apps

Voice superior was acceptable through the earpiece, with a clean, brittle accent and appropriate accretion available. Transmissions through the microphone were a little attenuate and choppy, but I'll book it up to the aforementioned issues afflictive Verizon's arrangement on analysis day. Reception was solid. We're still testing the Lumia 822's array on LTE and will amend this analysis as anon as we accept a result.

As before, Nokia developed some absolute apps for Windows Buzz 8, and they're not your boilerplate bloatware. Nokia Drive delivers solid, turn-by-turn, voice-enabled GPS navigation, while Nokia Transit offers accessible busline info, and Nokia Maps is a accepted crammer app for award things while on the go. The Lumia 822's 1.5GHz dual-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor is an accomplished performer, and turns in fast criterion after-effects and contributes to a active feel in circadian usage.

Unique to Verizon Wireless, the Lumia 822 includes Abstracts Sense, which monitors your abstracts acceptance on an app-by-app basis, and again compresses abstracts to and from your buzz whenever possible. Microsoft claims a 45 percent abridgement in data, although we'll accept to see how that bears out over the continued haul. Either way, it's a acceptable administration to arch in, now that the above U.S. carriers are affective to tiered, bound account abstracts plans, and lets you at atomic anticipate about traveling with a lower-cost plan.

Windows Buzz 8 itself is a able OS with a characteristic and absolutely advantageous interface, as we've begin on abundant occasions. The latest adaptation includes reside tiles in altered sizes, which helps if configuring your home awning and lock screens. Microsoft's app abundance is up to 100,000 apps, but abounding of them don't bout accepted apps you'll acquisition on Android and iOS phones. And while there are acceptable amateur on Windows Phone, there's annihilation absolutely on the akin you'll acquisition on the top two smartphone platforms.

Multimedia, Camera, and Conclusions

Otherwise, the Lumia 822 shares the blow of the Lumia 810's characteristics. There's 16GB of centralized storage, with 9.78GB chargeless for user programs and media. There's aswell a microSD agenda slot—a acceptable advance on beforehand Windows Buzz devices—that accepts 64GB cards; my 32GB SanDisk agenda formed fine. Music and video advance play aback beautifully, with easy-to-navigate interfaces and bland performance.

The 8-megapixel camera has a Carl Zeiss lens, wide-angle capability, autofocus, and a bifold LED flash. Nokia knows its cameras, and the after-effects appearance in the Lumia 822's solid photos and video recordings, even admitting it's not absolutely the aforementioned camera as the one in the higher-end Lumia 920 on AT&T. There's aswell a 1.2-megapixel front-facing camera for video chats; it's bigger than the VGA sensor in the Lumia 810.

I'm appraisement the Lumia 822 bisected a point college than I did on T-Mobile, acknowledgment to the Lumia 822's hardly lighter and added absorbing anatomy factor, the Abstracts Sense app, fast LTE connectivity, and bigger front-facing camera. The a lot of absolute Android allegory on Verizon is the Motorola Droid Razr M, which has the aforementioned processor and awning size, but manages to be smaller, lighter, accept a bluff screen, and admission to over 600,000 Android apps. The Droid Razr M's camera isn't absolutely as acceptable as the one in the Lumia 822, though. The Samsung Galaxy Stellar is chargeless on Verizon, and offers abundant of the Droid Razr M's goodness, admitting with a hardly inferior screen, processor, and camera.

Our Editors' Choice smartphone on Verizon Wireless charcoal the Apple iPhone 5, which lets you admission the best app archive on the planet, and has a smooth, glossy interface that's absolutely altered than Windows Buzz but just as powerful. That said, a added absolute allegory is the Apple iPhone 4S, which costs the aforementioned as the Lumia 822; it loses LTE (a big deal) and accomplish down to a abate 3.5-inch screen, admitting with college resolution, and still has a bigger camera.