Nokia has launched its first-ever pure touch smartphone N9 in Singapore on Tuesday. The Finnish mobile maker claims that the newcomer focuses on the most important things that people always want to do with their smartphones - use apps, get notifications and switch between different activities. Nokia has come up with its latest gem at a time when the so called smartphone war is getting tougher with Apple iPhone and Android smartphones being the top rivals.

It's quite obvious that struggling Nokia badly wants to get back into the limelight, and whatever new smartphone it releases, it must have enough features to make it a killer device. The N9 is Nokia's first and last to use MeeGo OS. It comes with a large touch screen and is available in black, cyan and magenta.

The N9 hit the battle ground nearly after a year since Nokia released its last high-end smartphone, the N8.

A detailed look at Nokia's new release N9 shows whether it has the strength to blow away the league of big-screen phone makers like Samsung, HTC and, of course, Apple.

First of all, N9 will get full marks in terms of styling. Compared to iPhone, the N9's beautiful curved design adds one more point to its looks. If one likes his/her iPhone for its design and elegance, then he/she will also fall in love with N9 for the very same reason. It looks awesome in black.

The body of N9 is made from one single piece of polycarbonate and flows seamlessly into beautiful curved glass. The use of a high-end plastic with metal-like strength like polycarbonate helps in terms of keeping the weight down and also improving signal reception.

Its AMOLED screen is made from scratch-resistant curved glass. Since it's laminated to the under-side of the display glass, there is hardly any space between the glass and the deep black display. The N9 comes with a display of 3.9 inch, which is a bit smaller than Samsung's Galaxy S2 with 4.3 inch. However, in terms of resolution, it has an upper hand. The N9 has a resolution of 0.41 megapixels, which is higher than Galaxy S2.

Unlike Apple that so reluctantly accepts a 'home' button on the front side for its iPhone, Nokia this time simply rules out the same. The 'home' button has been replaced by a simple swipe gesture.

What are the setbacks?

The MeeGo operating system is good. But since it's not certain whether it'll have enough application development happening on it in the future, the OS can prove to be a downside of the N9.

Another possible blow is its processor, a single-core Texas Instruments unit running at 1 GHz. While its major rivals like the Galaxy S2, the HTC Sensation and the LG Optimus 2X are having dual core chips, N9's single-core processor may not serve the purpose as expected.

Other key features:

* Nokia N9 features an 8 megapixel Carl Zeiss autofocus camera with wide-angle lens and HD-quality video capture. Nokia claims that the phone has a large lens aperture to give nice shots in low light.

* It also features free turn-by-turn drive and walk navigation with voice guidance in Maps.

* You can watch videos in 16:9 widescreen format.

* It has 1024 MB RAM and 16 GB/64 GB storage.

So, Nokia's new kid does match the class of the iPhone. It seems that Nokia has got something to remind smartphone users that experience and class also matter. It remains to be seen how N9 confronts its mega rivals.

Nokia N9 is likely to be made available later this year.

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