[citation][nom]amdwilliam1985[/nom]Played with Nokia 900 a little bit last week, I was almost convinced to switch over to wp8 from Android, the only missing piece(one of the most important piece to me) is the drag down notification.Android has perfected the drag down notification system, that it's the single most used feature on my phone. WP8 needs to have it before I can be converted.[/citation]
The idea with the live tiles is that you don't need to use a drag down menu - you get all of the notifications on the app tiles themselves. I agree that it does need to be tweaked in order to be a bit more readable (if you have more than one email, it just shows the # of emails), and usable when you're inside an app and not on a homescreen.
I'm hoping Verizon gets a decent selection of devices. Looks like HTC is the only OEM with a WP8 device on board right now, but I'd love to compare it to a Nokia. Luckily all of the announced devices have roughly the same hardware, so you're not necessarily getting cheated.