Now stepping up as the latest frontrunners in Google's ongoing war with Apple, Motorola's Droid Razr and Samsung's Galaxy Nexus are both high end smartphones that are both capable of taking on Apple's latest iPhone 4s. While both devices are being compared to the iPhone 4s, they are still competing against one another in the smartphone market. How exactly do they stack up against each other?

Aesthetics

Both Motorola's Droid Razr and the Samsung Galaxy Nexus are gorgeous looking handsets. Motorola's Droid Razr is all about sharp angles while Samsung's Galaxy Nexus is more about curved and smooth surfaces with a curved glass display. Motorola boasts that the Droid Razr is the thinnest smartphone in the market at only 7.1 mm. The Galaxy Nexus compared to it is practically hefty at 9 mm.

Display

The displays on both devices are relatively similar. Both have Super Amoled HD capacitive touchscreen displays. Motorola has a host of features on its display that promises to make it durable including tough Gorilla Glass. The Galaxy Nexus on the other hand has a bigger display, about 4.6 inches to the Razr's 4.3 inches, and an amazing 720x1280 pixel resolution. The Galaxy Nexus also has multi-touch and oleophobic coating that repels smudges. Both phones have built-in accelerometers and gyro sensors to allow for screen rotation.

Hardware

Both devices have dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processors under their hoods. The Droid Razr runs the TI OMAP 4430 chipset and a PowerVR SGX540 graphics card. The Galaxy Nexus has a slight edge with its TI OMAP 4460 chipset but also runs on the same graphics card. Both phones have 1Gb of memory.

For storage, the Motorola Droid Razr has 16Gb of inboard storage and can be expanded with additional microSD storage. The Galaxy Nexus offers a bigger onboard storage capacity of 32 Gb as well as 16Gb version but doesn't offer external storage.

Software

So far both the Droid Razr and the Galaxy Nexus have matched up well against each other but the real point of contention is in the software. The Galaxy Nexus ships with the latest Android OS, the Ice Cream Sandwich while the Motorola Droid Razr will ship out with the Android 2.3.5 or the Gingerbread with plans to upgrade in January next year. The Ice Cream Sandwich is crammed full of features that many see as the real competitor to the iOS 5. The ICS has face unlock, Android beam and voice operated features.

When it comes right down to it both phones are equally spectacular and choosing between them can all come down to personal preference. If you don't want to wait until January to get the Ice Cream Sandwich, you might want to go with Samsung's Galaxy Nexus but for those who prefer the Droid Razr's hardware specs and unique design, Motorola is the manufacturer for you.