Nokia Lumia 800

The importance of the high-end Nokia Lumia 800--the more elite of Nokia's first-ever two Windows phones can't be overstated (the other is the Nokia Lumia 710). The Lumia runs Windows Phone 7.5 Mango, and has a 3.7-inch AMOLED screen, a 1.4GHz single-core processor, and 16GB internal memory. It also has an 8-megapixel camera with an f/2.2 Carl Zeiss Tessar lens and dual-LED flash, and support for 720p HD video capture. Nokia has also added some interesting apps inside. Yet the camera is disappointing, there's no front-facing camera, no tethering, and people will either love or hate the risky design.Priced at $585 U.S. (420 euros).

The Lumia 800, like the Meego-based Nokia N9 it's modeled on, is one interesting-looking phone. Worked from a solid piece of colored polycarbonate (a specific type of plastic), the smooth magenta, cyan, or black Lumia 800. The material, whose properties include resisting heat damage and denting, feels solid and durable in the hand, if a little bit slippery. It measures 4.59 inches tall by 2.4 inches wide by 0.47 inch thick. The handset doesn't take up too much room in closer-fitting pockets.

The back is home to the 8-megapixel camera lens with dual-LED flash. There's no battery cover on the back of this phone, so prepare to press and hold the power button to perform a hard reset should things go wrong (just like on iOS devices) instead of a battery pull, should things go wrong.

The screen. For starters, it's fitted into the Lumia's body to form a pretty tight seal. The screen material itself is curved and slightly bubbles out (about 2.5mm), which gives you a smooth, almost spherical feel as you swipe left and right across the screen. (It actually feels pretty awesome.) Also awesome is the look of the screen itself. Its WVGA resolution (800x480 pixels) on 3.7 inches of AMOLED material just pops and omposing e-mail messages and reading content online is easier with a 4-inch screen.

Windows Phone 7.5 is the OS that runs the show, and that means the Lumia 800's interface consists of the Start screen and the app screen. The Start screen is minimally customizable; you can change the background color to white or black, and choose from one of 11 colors for the tiles, app icons, and other visual accents systemwide, including a new one, Nokia Blue. You're able to rearrange live tiles, pin and unpin them to the screen, and also pin individual items, like a single contact or a contact group. Thanks to Mango, your personal profile tile is more dynamic, letting you check in to places and update social networks from the home screen.