It's shaping up to be one heck of a November in the smartphone market with Samsung, Motorola and Nokia all set to release their flagship smartphones against Apple's iPhone 4s. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Droid Razr and Nokia Lumia are all entering the market this November with the intention of taking down industry leader Apple's iPhone 4s. With all four phones jockeying for market supremacy, consumers will have to face the tough decision of deciding which smartphone to spend their money on. Here's a helpful spec comparison between the four contenders for smartphone supremacy.

Design

In terms of design Apple has traditionally been the more stylish with its distinctive flair for smartphones that are sleek and unique. The iPhone 4s looks the same as the iPhone 4 but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. The iPhone 4 had a radical design that was functional but beautiful in its simplicity.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is huge. It has a huge 4.6-inch display and weighs 135 grams which is still lighter than the iPhone 4s which weighs in at 140 grams. Despite the size, the Galaxy Nexus just looks like a premium smartphone. It's all plastic body and tapered design is attractive eye-candy.

Motorola's revived the Razr name and released the thinnest smartphone in the market. The Motorola Droid Razr not only weighs less, 127 g, it's also only 7.1 mm thick. As for design, the Droid Razr is one sexy phone with a unique wavy pattern on the back.

Nokia's Lumia is also patterned after a previous model, the N9. Like the N9, the Nokia Lumia 800 has a streamlined design with flat tops and rounded edges. The display is actually set slightly above the edge to make the side-to-side swiping motions much smoother to handle. The Lumia is actually a rather thick phone with a 12.1 mm body and weighs 142 grams, making it the heaviest of the four phones.

Hardware Specs

The Lumia 800 really suffers in comparison to the other three in terms of hardware. Apple's iPhone 4s, Motorola's Droid Razr and Samsung's Galaxy Nexus all run on dual core processors. The Lumia has a single core 1.4 Ghz processor. In comparison the Galaxy Nexus and Droid Razr are both at the top with 1.2 Ghz dual core chips. The iPhone 4s falls somewhere in the middle with its 1 GHz dual-core ARM Cortex-A9 processor. Both the Nokia Lumia and iPhone 4s runs on 512Mb of RAM while the Galaxy Nexus and Droid Razr have 1Gb of RAM.

In terms of storage capacity, the iPhone 4s offers 16, 32 and 64 Gb storage with iCloud storage. The Droid Razr offers 16Gb of onboard storage and another pre-installed 16Gb microSD card that can be upgraded to a 32Gb card. The Galaxy Nexus offers 16 or 32Gb versions with no microSD expansion. The Nokia Lumia 800 only offers 16Gb of onboard storage with no option for expansion because it doesn't have a microSD slot.

Display

The Lumia 800 has a small 3.7 inch display with AMOLED screen which is nothing to brag about considering the other screens its competitors have to offer. The iPhone 4s' 3.5 inch screen while smaller than Lumia's screen offers the superb Retina Display which has a resolution of 960x640 and amazing pixel density. The Samsung Galaxy Nexus has its huge 4.65 inch display and its Super AMOLED display which is matched by the Droid Razr with its 4.3 inch qHD Super AMOLED display. Motorola boasts that the Droid Razr is the first smartphone to be able to stream HD content from internet providers like Netflix.

Software

It is in the software part where the battle really heats up. Android and Apple's iOS 5 have been dominating this area but with Microsoft's revamped Windows Phone OS called Mango this battle could suddenly open to a three-way stalemate.

The main skirmish here is in Apple's iPhone 4s which has the iOS 5, Galaxy Nexus which will ship with Android's latest Ice Cream Sandwich OS and Nokia's Lumia 800 which will run on Windows Phone 7.5 or Mango. The Droid Razr will have to wait until next year to get an update on its Gingerbread OS.

The iOS 5 is the latest OS from Apple and it promises to revamp the Apple experience. For one thing it offers the iCloud which is allows any device with iOS 5 to sync with the iCloud and transfer data from one device to another. The user interface is easy to master if you're used to Apple OS. The iOS 5 also has its much talked about virtual assistant called Siri which is voice activated and can make calls, set appointments, send texts and has her own personality. Apple has far more app support with over 500,000 apps available in its App Store.

The Ice Cream Sandwich is the latest update from Android and it also has unique features including a facial unlock that lets you use your picture to unlock your phone. The Ice Cream Sandwich also has Google Beam that lets you transfer data from one Android phone to another. Like the iOS 5 it also has its own voice activated app without Siri's personality. Android offers a more open ecosystem with deeper customization available. There are about 250,000 Android apps available.

Windows Mango OS has its unique metro tiles UI that's very visually appealing. It also has multitasking features and deeper social media integration. It doesn't offer much in apps with only 30,000 apps but Microsoft hopes to attract more developers in the next few months.