Getting To Know My First Windows Phone: Nokia Lumia Icon

Don’t be intimidated, it’s just a phone. At least that’s what I keep telling myself about my first Windows Phone, the new Nokia Lumia Icon. It’s looks so familiar, yet foreign at the same time. The Icon boots up to a bright and beautiful home screen complete with colorful Windows tiles. I use Microsoft Windows on my PC at home, so that part seems familiar. But after four years with my Android icons, the large Windows tiles seem strange…and I don’t know what they all do…yet!

As part of an amazing group of Verizon Lifestyle bloggers, I received the Nokia Lumia Icon. Follow hashtag #VZWBuzz for the latest and greatest happenings from Verizon Wireless.

To get to know my Nokia Lumia Icon a little better, I took a lesson from my 2-year-old’s approach to touchscreen technology: Push on every single thing and see what happens. This is actually working out quite well for me. My favorite onscreen button to push on so far is the Nokia Pro Cam app.

I can already tell you the main reason I’d want the Nokia Lumia Icon is because of its advanced HD video taking ability and 20 megapixel camera. Most of the hefty DSLR cameras we parents tote around don’t even offer 20MP! Imagine a smartphone that you could easily carry around and use to take high quality photos and videos…that’s what you get with the Icon.

I’ve been spending most of my time playing around with the Icon’s camera. It has a Zeiss lens and you can manually adjust the camera settings, which is a pretty cool thing if you know what you’re doing. I’m content to let my Icon take photos on the Automatic setting. I have been really happy with its performance.

On the way home from school, I stopped and took a few photos from my favorite spots along the route. It was super gloomy outside as you can tell from the misty fog creeping on the mountains. The photo clarity and detail is amazing, especially when you know you are using a camera phone!

This is the barn where my favorite horses live in the summer.

We love to take the train ride along these tracks. It’s beautiful any time of year.

The local trains sometimes get “held up” by fake train robbers at the station around the bend. We like to pretend we still live in the Wild West.

The Nokia Lumia Icon’s 5-inch screen size is exactly the same as my Samsung Galaxy S4. I think this a great phone size. It’s just right: not too big to carry around in your pocket, yet not too small to do a lot of web surfing, Netflix binge watching, tweeting, Facebooking and everything else I like to do with my phone.

It may take me awhile longer, but I will get to know my Windows Phone and all the Nokia app goodies it can offer. I am sure once my kids see that the Icon can integrate with Xbox Live, I will have a hard time getting this phone away from them.

Get the Nokia Lumia Icon smartphone EXCLUSIVELY at Verizon!