What's a Windows Phone like, and how does it compare to other smartphones? To answer those questions I spent time with the Nokia Lumia 822 from Verizon.

At 5-by-2.7-by-0.44 inches, the Nokia Lumia 822 is a streamlined yet speedy device. The 4.3-inch, 800x480 WVGA AMOLED display may not be the fanciest, but it boasts sharp colors and good readability even in a brightly lit room. The Lumia 822 uses the 1.5GHz Snapdragon processor with 1GB of RAM and 16GB of storage, and it supports MicroSD cards as well as NFC.

The learning curve for Windows 8 isn't as steep as you might imagine, but it's definitely different if you're used to iPhone or Android. Those colorful squares are Live Tiles, your gateway to your phone's features. Unlike other systems, Windows 8's Live Tiles offer the added convenience of displaying status updates for your apps. You can rearrange and resize Live Tiles as desired. Windows Phone is highly customizable, which is great for tinkerers but might seem like overkill for the average user.