Nokia announces Lumia 822 Windows smartphone

• Lumia 822 on Verizon has 8MP camera, turn-by-turn navigation
• Nokia Music offers ad-free music streaming
• Windows Phone 8 seen as key for Nokia

Ahead of Microsoft's smartphone event later today, Nokia has announced the Nokia Lumia 822 Windows Phone 8 smartphone on Verizon.

The phone has an 8 megapixel camera, turn-by-turn navigation and free unlimited music streaming from Nokia Music, which the company describes as a "completely" ad free music streaming app.

Among other specs, the phone has a 1.2 megapixel front-facing camera for video calls. It also supports wireless charging with an optional exchangeable shell casing. The phone is part of Nokia's fall lineup. The company did not confirm a specific availability date or pricing.

The Next Web notes that the Lumia 822 is a variant of the Lumia 820, available on AT&T in November, and will be available in black, white, and grey.

Microsoft's Windows Phone 8 software is important for Nokia as it competes against Apple's iPhone and others in the hotly competitive smartphone market.

On Friday, research firm IDC said that in the July-to-September period, the Finnish company for the first time slid off the list of the top five smartphone makers in the world, the Associated Press reported. It's still the second-largest maker of phones overall.

The ailing company's CEO, Stephen Elop, sees Microsoft's new Windows Phone 8 software as a chance to reverse that trend, describing it as a catalyst for the new models.

Later today, Microsoft. is hosting a big launch event for the software at an arena in San Francisco. The first phones from Nokia, Samsung and HTC are expected to hit store shelves next month.

The launch of Windows Phone 8 follows on the heels of Windows 8 for PCs and tablets, which Microsoft released Friday. That operating system has borrowed its look from Windows Phone, meaning Microsoft now has a unified look across PCs and phones — at least if people take to Windows 8. The company has also made it easy for developers to create software that runs on both platforms with minor modifications.

Analysts are calling this a make-or-break moment for Nokia.

"Nokia is placing a huge bet on Microsoft and if the gamble doesn't pay off, the losses can be high," said Neil Mawston from Strategy Analytics, near London. "It's putting all its eggs in one basket and that's quite a high-risk strategy."

In February last year, Nokia announced it was teaming up with Microsoft to replace its old Symbian and next-generation MeeGo software platforms with Windows. This move was made in the hope that it would rejuvenate the company and claw back lost ground.

Eight months later, they produced the first Nokia Windows Phone.

Consumers didn't warm to it, and it soon became clear that these phones, based on Windows Phone 7, were going to become obsolete. They can't be upgraded to Windows Phone 8. Lumia sales slumped to 2.9 million units in the third quarter after reaching 4 million in the previous three months.

Contributing: The Associated Press and Nancy Blair