Nokia Oyj at the Nokia World 2011 in London unveiled what its claims to be a "bold portfolio of innovative phones" led by the Nokia Lumia 800. With the new Lumia line, the Finnish handset maker hopes that its partnership with Microsoft Corp. would help it regain its dominance in the smartphone market.

The Lumia 800 and the Lumia 710 are the first Nokia devices running on the Windows platform. While the Windows 7.5 Mango OS has seen limited distribution in select HTC, LG and Samsung phones, Nokia chief Stephen Elop says the Lumia is the "first real Windows phone made by anyone".

Apple's iPhone and devices running on Google's Android (Samsung, HTC, and Motorola are the top three vendors of Android phones) are dominating the market. But Microsoft (which just has 2 percent market share for mobile platforms in mid-2011) has a massive advertising campaign and Nokia (still the world's number one vendor of mobile phones) has the world's largest distribution network for handsets.

Does Microsoft (the only tech company with a triple-A rating from Standard & Poor's) and Nokia have a device that will defeat iPhone 4S and the newest Android devices?

Nokia and Microsoft are not the only industry leading companies that have collaborated for a new smartphone. 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 Galaxy Nexus will be available in shelves in November.

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 including iMessage (a free-of-charge chat service for users of Apple devices).

The Nokia Lumia 800 features what Nokia calls "head-turning design, vivid colors and the best social and Internet performance", with one-touch social network access, easy grouping of contacts, integrated communication threads and Internet Explorer 9. It features 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, and 512 MB of RAM. At the back of the device, there's an 8-megapixel instant-share camera experience based on leading Carl Zeiss optics, HD video playback, 16GB of internal user memory and 25GB of free SkyDrive storage for storing images and music. It has a 1450mAh battery for nearly 10 hours of talk time. The Nokia Lumia 800 supports 3.5G data, WiFi and Bluetooth and USB connectivity. There is GPS, an accelerometer, proximity sensor and magnetometer.

The Galaxy Nexus phone has no physical buttons on the front, and instead features on-screen soft keys embedded into the system software. The Lumia 800 has three Microsoft designed buttons at the bottom of a 3.7-inch 480 x 800 pixel AMOLED display,

Among the three, the Nexus Prime has the biggest screen and is the only one among the three that boasts of 4G connectivity and NFC capability. The iPhone 4S has a talking virtual assistant, Siri, as its main draw. The Nokia Lumia 800 relies on a stunning design (not a large rectangular brick), Nokia's reputation of providing excellent hardware (shatter-free devices), and the tile-based user interface provided by Mango and the Metro.

The Nokia Lumia 800 has a similar form factor to the Nokia N9, the first and last MeeGo-based phone. Like the gorgeous looking N9, the Lumia 800 was made with precision and attention to detail. The Lumia 800 is slimmer than the colorful N9 and is the most appealing Windows Phone device to date. While the iPhone 4S comes only in black or white, the Lumia comes in ither cyan, magenta or black. The Lumia has a unibody polycarbonate chassis and a curve-edge glass for its screen. In contrast, the iPhone 4S has stainless steel on the sides and a single sheet of flat glass covering the display. The iPhone is flat on all sides with curved corners while the Lumia is pillowy.

The LUmia has built-in apps that are unique. Nokia Drive works with the on-board GPS, offering a free turn-by-turn navigation program that allows preloading maps onto the handset so you don't incur data costs. Other features include Xbox Live integration, Nokia's own streaming radio service and music store, mobile versions of Microsoft Office and Outlook. It also has integration with Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

But Lumia 800 has its draw-backs. It only has a single-core processor. And although it has the Skype app, the device doesn't have a front-facing camera for video calls. As to the apps, while the Apple App Store and the Android Market already have thousands of apps, Microsoft has yet to gain ground in the mobile phone market and has yet to convince developers to make more apps. And the Lumia 800 won't be available in the U.S. this year.

Will the Nokia Lumia 800 be the iPhone 4S killer? The Lumia 800 and the other new Nokia devices should help Nokia regain lost ground in the smartphone market. But Nokia doesn't have the iPhone 4S killer.

The Lumia 800, given that it doesn't have superior specs (Android phones with bigger screens, dual-core processors, 1 GHz of RAM haven't been able to kill the iPhone) and is still Nokia's first foray into Windows, is clearly aimed at the mid-market, which is dominated by Android devices. Nokia will likely take an aim at the iPhone 4S when it releases its new batch of Windows phones next year. The next batch of Nokia phones will likely run on Windows 8, the first operating system designed to work on PCs and mobile devices.

"Given Nokia's recent reverses in the smartphone market, Lumia clearly faces something of an uphill struggle," said John Delaney, Research Director at IDC, according to reporting by Know Your Mobile.

Delaney added, "We don't think the Lumia 800 is an iPhone or Galaxy killer. Those two franchises still have very strong momentum, and there's nothing unique about the new phone that looks powerful enough to stop them in their tracks."

The iPhone 4S was released Oct. 14 in the United States, Canada, Australia, United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Japan. It will be released in 22 more European, American and Asian countries, including Ireland, Mexico and Singapore on October 28. The Galaxy Nexus will be available in various countries such as the United States and the UK in November.

The Lumia 800 will be available in the UK, France, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Italy in November. It will be available in Hong Kong, India, Russia, Singapore and Taiwan by the end of the year. The device will be available in other countries in early 2012.

Here's Nokia's video on the Lumia: