Depends if Russian forces were permanently stationed in the country or not; Poland, the GDR, Czechoslovakia after 1967 and Hungary did have them, so they had to adhere strictly to all changes in the Soviet foreign policy.

Czechoslovakia did not have a permanent presence of Russian forces until 1967, so they had a greater degree of independence.

In Romania there were was no Russian contingent, so they were more independent in matter of foreign policy; for example: unlike the rest of the Eastern block they did not break of diplomatic relations with Israel in 1967. Also they were on friendly terms with the Chinese Party - after the Sino Soviet split, and they had stronger ties to the West - strongest ties among the block countries.

Albania left the Warsaw Pact in 1961 - they sided with Mao when the Sino Soviet split happened.

In terms of the economy and internal affairs there were a lot of variations between member countries - in the period after the death of Stalin.

• Hungary since the 1960ies experimented with economic reforms; allowed a measure of private enterprise and produced more consumer goods http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goulash_Communism ; however by the end of the eighties they also took up a lot of foreign debt/western credits that had to be payed back.
• Poland during Gomulka had its liberal moments; unlike the rest of the block they never collectivized agriculture, and Poles were allowed to travel to the west and read newspapers from the west. After the six-day war the Gomulka regime staged an openly Antisemitic campaign that forced the remaining Jews out of Poland (very uncommon ideological tones; in the Soviet Union official antisemitism was more veiled as Anti-Zionism) ; in the seventies they took large scale credits from the west, these credits went bad. Also they had to tolerate strikes and Solidarnosc - a unique event for the eastern block. The remaining eighties were all around economic austerity (foreign debt had to be payed back) and suppression of Solidarnocz. Another unique feature among block countries was that the Catholic church had a lot of influence in Poland.
• the GDR was mostly very strict ever since collectivization in 1960 (the Berlin Wall was build as a result of these failed policies - since collectivization everyone who could just ran away), it had a very short liberal spring around 1963-65. However salaries were relatively high, if compared to the other eastern block countries; In the eighties they took a lot of debt from the West, so by 89 the regime was economically bankrupt.
• Romania had a strict personality cult, Also they banned abortions (unlike the rest of the block countries). Since the eighties they became nasty towards Hungarians living in Romania, and the regime became more and more nationalistic; in the eighties they also had to pay back this huge pile of foreign debt, so living standards were very bad - worst place to live among all block countries.
• Czechoslovakia liberalized the economy in the sixties, so in the end they had the Prague Spring, this was brought down by intervention of the Soviet Union and the rest of the Warsaw Packt; during subsequent Normalization the regime tried to bribe the population, so as long as you did not have anything to do with politics it was a pleasant place to live; also repressions against Charter 77 were not quite as strict and nasty as they could have been (the nasty period was in the late sixties and early seventies). Also in Czechoslovakia they somehow managed to do without piling up a large mountain of foreign debt.