Gadgetory

nokia is making a strong showing with its Lumia device family here at the tail end of 2012 including some highly customized versions of its mid-range Lumia 820 today we're going to review one of them for Verizon Wireless I'm Michael Fisher this is PocketNow and this is our quick review of the Nokia Lumia 822 as we mentioned in our earlier hardware tour and comparison videos this is a 142 gram 11 point 2 millimeter thick device that combination of relative light weight and relative thickness gives it a toy-like feel in the hand and that's exacerbated by these sheer sides and sharp edges its body reminds us of the plastic II feel of the galaxy s3 but the added thickness actually helps it sit better in the hand and the added roundness compared to t-mobile's Lumia 810 variant means it's quite a comfortable device to hold even if it occasionally feels and looks like a starter phone for preteens in exchange for that aesthetic sacrifice you get a removable battery cover and removable 1800 milliamp hour battery as well as expandable microSD storage to shore up these 16 gigs of internal memory that's in addition to a dual-core Qualcomm s4 CPU backed by a gig of ram an 8 megapixel camera and LTE support for Verizon's 4G network the 820 2's display is a 4.3 inch AMOLED panel that delivers excellent deep blacks and highly saturated colors in addition to impressive off angle view ability its resolution is quite low though at 800 by 480 and that's only going to look fuzzier over time as higher resolution panels flood the market in all the Lumia 822 packs Hardware that's perfectly capable of running Windows Phone 8 in a package that feels good in the hand even if it does resemble a bar of soap and the hardware runs Windows Phone 8 with the now-familiar degree of silky smooth alacrity Windows Phone 8 runs as well as its forerunner on every device we've tested it on and the a.22 is no exception Verizon has loaded it with some of the usual bloatware but the Windows Phone data sense compression and maintenance utility is also here which will make those on tight cheap data plans happy from day-to-day homescreen scrolling with many updating live tiles to browsing an Internet Explorer 10 to flying planes and rise of glory performance is top-notch if you took the differences in displays out of the equation you'd be hard-pressed to tell the differences in software responsiveness between the 822 and a higher-end model like the HTC 8x or the Lumia 920 Windows Phone is just that consistent that consistent performance continued in our test period with the 822 delivering well on the core tenets of the mobile phone experience calling was solid both over earpiece and speakerphone data speeds over Verizon's LTE network were speedy and reception was up to par and battery life was quite good the 822 lasted one hour and 58 minutes on the WP bench stress test that's lower than the Lumia 920 score of two hours and thirty minutes but the 822 was also a real champ on standby lasting over 25 hours with light use even over LTE as on the Lumia 810 the camera was an unexpected high point of the experience even though it doesn't have pure view branding or the optical image stabilization of the Lumia 920 the 822 shooter delivered good stills especially when we made use of the scenes functionality in the photo settings menu it's not a camera that automatically adjusts to every situation perfectly but once you get used to using scene mode it can deliver some really nice shots for a smart phone especially in low-light the Lumia 822 is the first Nokia device on Verizon Wireless in quite some time and it's part of a long overdue Windows Phone resurgence for the carrier it may not have the good looks or pizzazz of the higher-end HTC 8x and it's screen is definitely yesterday's news but it's the value-adding nokia exclusive apps and Nokia's build quality that make it a device to consider especially for a Verizon's current $49.99 contract price we give the Nokia Lumia 822 a 7 out of 10 this was our first quick review and we hope you enjoyed it if you want much more including more screenshots more sample photos more device photos benchmarks and more visit us on the full quick review post at pocketnow.com if you want to follow us on twitter so you don't miss anything you should pocket now tweets is the official account you can follow me I'm at captain 2 phones that's captain the number two phones leave us a thumbs up here on YouTube if you liked what you saw throw us a comment on the post at pocketnow.com if you want to give us some feedback and thanks very much for watching as always we'll see you next time