Pundits have been saying that the patent war among smartphone makers is killing innovation. But recently unveiled touch-screen phones show that device-makers are no longer copying each other's designs for a large rectangular brick and are trying to outdo each other in adding cutting edge features in their devices.

Take a look at four gorgeous touch-screen phones that have hit the market: Apple Inc.'s iPhone 4S, Nokia Oyj's Lumia 800, Samsung Electronics' and Google's Galaxy Nexus, Motorola Mobility's Droid RAZR, and HTC's Titan.

Nokia unveiled its first Windows Phone-based device, the Lumia 800 at the Nokia World conference in London Wednesday. The Lumia 800 looks similar to the Nokia N9, the phone lambasted by reviewers for using a phased-out platform in Meego but praised for its industrial design. The Lumia 800 is as stunning as the N9 but is slimmer and uses the Windows 7.5 Mango platform.

The Nokia Lumia 800 sports a 3.7 inch AMOLED ClearBlack curved display b, and a 1.4GHz single-core Qualcomm Snapdragon processor with hardware acceleration and a graphics processor, 512 MB of RAM and a 1450mAh battery. At the back of the device, there's an 8-megapixel instant-share camera experience based on leading Carl Zeiss optics, HD video playback. The Lumia 800 has three Microsoft designed buttons at the bottom of the screen. The Lumia has a pillowy shape and has unibody polycarbonate chassis and a curve-edge glass for its screen.

Apple on Oct. 12 finally released the iPhone 4S, which sports a 3.5-inch screen; an 8-megapixel, 1080p high-definition camera; an A5 dual-core chip processor that is seven times faster than the graphics processor in the iPhone 4; 512 MB of RAM; two antennae to transmit and receive data; CDMA and GSM connectivity; 8 hours of 3G talk-time; and new applications like Siri and Find My Friends. Siri is a voice-recognition system that turns the device into a hands-free personal assistant. The iPhone 4S uses the iOS 5 platform, which has 200 new features, which include iMessage (a free-of-charge chat service for users of Apple devices).

Samsung Electronics and Google have teamed up to present the Galaxy Nexus, the first smartphone running on Android Ice Cream Sandwich. The new Android platform features a number of new features and improvements, including, but not limited to Face Unlock, voice typing, Android Beam, based on NFC, Wi-Fi Direct, among others. The Galaxy Nexus features a 4.65-inch 1,280×720-pixel Super AMOLED HD with curved glass, a dual-core 1.2 GHz Ti OMAP 4460 processor, 1 GB of RAM, a 1.75 mAh battery, 1.3 MP front camera and 5 MP rear camera capable of 1080p video, 4G, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS, Barometer, and NFC.

The HTC Titan uses the Windows Phone 7.5 platform and comes with a huge 4.7-inch Super LCD capacitive touchscreen, a single-core 1.5GHz processor, a 1.3-megapixel camera, an 8-megapixel rear camera, and 16 GB of fixed flash storage. The phone has dimensions of 9.9 mm (0.39-inch) x 70.7 mm x 131.5 mm and weighs 160 grams (5.6-ounce). The large screen acreage is well suited for Mango's vertically-scrolling live tiles. Although the screen is large, it has a resolution of 800 x 480, the same resolution as phones with smaller screens. The phone has a black-painted metal unibody case.

Motorola sold 130 million units of the RAZR phones a half decade ago. Motorola is bringing back the RAZR hoping for the same success. But your Droid RAZR is no longer the clamshell designed fashion phones. It's an Android-based, 4G LTE-capable touch-screen phone. Like its predecessors, the Drioid RAZR is sleek and measures only 7.1 mm, the thinnest in the world. The phone sports a 4.3 inch Super AMOLED Advanced display, covered in a Gorilla glass screen, and is powered by an OMAP 4430 SoC with dual 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor cores. It has an 8 megapixel rear facing camera can record 1080p HD videos and a 1.3 megapixel front camera. It comes with 1 GB of RAM and runs version 2.3.5 of the Android OS

The Mango platform for the Lumia 800 and the HTC Titan has cool new features, including multi-tasking, ability to group together friends and connections, and has a revised Internet Explorer that has accurate rendering of Web pages inside a smartphone. While the tile-based user interface provided by Mango and the Metro are visually appealing, Microsoft has yet to gain ground in mobile devices (it just has 2% of the market). While hundreds of thousands of great apps for the iPhone and Android devices are already available in the Apple App Store and Android Market, Microsoft has yet to convince developers to make apps for Windows Phone. Although it doesn't have much third-party apps available for downloading, Nokia has loaded the phone with built-in apps: integration to Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft Bing, an exclusive ESPN app called Sports Hub, as well as Nokia exclusive Nokia Drive (GPS that features turn-by-turn voice navigation), Nokia Maps (directional information for navigating cities), Nokia Pulse (mix between Foursquare and Google+) and Nokia Music (access to MP3 store).

Nokia has been known for the best hardware and durability, but beyond that, the Lumia 800 might be a hard-sell. And although it has the Skype app, the device doesn't have a front-facing camera for video calls, and the device only has a single-core processor.

If the big-but-skinny form factor is the rage, then the Lumia's 3.7-inch screen, as well as the iPhone 4S's 3.5-inch display, might be too small for the Titan and the 4-inch-plus screens of Android phones.

Some months ago, tech sites were actually talking about an upcoming iPhone 5, which would have no home button and will have a larger screen. But Apple recycled the design of the iPhone 4, although the new phone did have some significant changes inside. The iPhone 4S has a quicker processor, a better camera and a new operating system. The Siri software, which is exclusive to the iPhone 4S, follows your commands and answers your questions with precision and accuracy. When you ask, "What's the best cellphone?" It answers, "What, are you kidding? With the new processor, the phone multitasks extremely well. The new phone can switch between two antennas to transmit and receive, for faster downloading and better call quality. Plus, the phone works in any part of the globe with both CDMA and GSM connections.

While the iPhone 4S has a talking personal assistant has its major draw, the Galaxy Nexus has a bold new design -- it has no physical buttons on the front, and instead features on-screen soft keys embedded into the system software. It is also the first Android phone to feature Ice Cream Sandwich. The latest Android update gives users complete control over the amount of mobile data used and offers state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to unlock the device. The Galaxy Nexus and other Android phones, aside from having a larger screen, offer features not found in the iPhone 4S -- 4G connectivity and NFC capability, among others.

The contract-free Lumia 800 will be available for EUR420 ($584). An unlocked iPhone 4S has an entry-level price of $649. The HTC Titan is priced at around $690. The Droid RAZR has a retail price of $649. The steep prices are just about right as these are your high-end powerful phones. They are cheaper though on a contract with major networks. The iPhone 4S for example is available for just $199 on a two-year contract.

The timing could hurt Nokia. The iPhone 4S is already out in most countries. The HTC Titan was released early this month. The Galaxy Nexus is expected to be launched worldwide in November. While Nokia is releasing the Lumia 800 in Europe, Australia and Asia in October, it doesn't plan to release the new phone in the U.S. until next year (when the lucrative holiday season is over).

Taking margins of 40% from the sale of its i-devices and selling 4 million units of the iPhone 4S in the first three days, Apple is having a head-start against rivals in the race to increase the cash-pile from the smartphone sales.

Nokia faces an uphill struggle, as before the Lumia 800, it hasn't released major new smartphones in the past year. The Lumia 800, although advertised as one of Nokia's best phones yet, is not the iPhone 4S killer.

The Galaxy Nexus is said to be designed to be Apple-proof, i.e., it won't have the same fate as the Galaxy S 2 and the Galaxy Tab 10.1 (they were banned in select countries due to patent related issues). But the iPhone users will not likely switch to the Galaxy Nexus and its facial recognition technology because it doesn't have a virtual assistant as advanced as Siri.

So who's the winner here? For new design, it might be the Lumia 800. For the software, it would be a tie between the Galaxy Nexus and the iPhone 4S. For the screen size, it's between the Titan and the Nexus. For the thinnest, it's the Droid RAZR. Clearly the stiff competition and the continued high demand for smartphones despite a tepid economy have pushed device-makers to be more creative and innovative. The real winner here are the consumers.