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On Saturday morning, Nokia will launch its first Flagship Store in the United States, and only second in the world. The location: Chicago's 'Magnificent Mile' shopping district at 543 N. Michigan Avenue. The opening follows the roll out of a Moscow store last December. More stores - eighteen in all - will follow over the next couple of years, including one this fall on New York's Fifth Avenue.

The aim of locating the new stores in premier retail districts is to attract people who truly enjoy shopping , according to Nokia. Cliff Crosbie, Nokia director of global retail & trade marketing, said, "We think that the service, selection and surroundings that we are delivering will exceed the expectations of even these most experienced shoppers."

While Nokia is the dominant mobile phone and smartphone vendor in the world, its smartphones have been slow to take hold in the U.S., where Palm's Treo's - for the most part - prevail, handsets based on Microsoft's Windows Mobile platform are doing increasingly well, and RIM satisfies much of the corporate market.

Nokia's new store, and the ones to follow, is an example of the Finnish company flexing its retail muscle to increase its American profile for its high-end devices, which include the 5-million seller multimedia Nseries and new business orientated Eseries.

Compared to competitor Palm's utilitarian retail Cafés, which are often situated in malls and airports, Nokia's store is decidedly upscale, showcasing its high-end smartphones as well as the Vertu line (starting at $5,000 an known to go as high as $90 grand) of hand-crafted handsets—sapphire crystals, fine leather, polished ceramic, ruby bearings, gold, stainless steel, titanium etc.—in addition to standard mobile phone models.

"The Nokia Flagship Store concept was developed to offer consumers unparalleled selection and guidance in this complex environment, and to do it in a way that transforms the process of acquiring a new wireless device from a task into a pleasure," according to Crosbie.

They've got a modern sheen.

The devices are mounted to the walls and connected to multimedia displays, which interactively walk consumers through the features of each product, and even allow them to send text messages that can then be seen on local store displays or at another Nokia Flagship Store anywhere in the world—only Moscow at this point, of course.

There are no price stickers, as small centrally controlled displays below each device shows this information.

In addition to the displays, there are kiosks throughout the Flagship Store that demonstrate the capabilities of different smartphones as well.

Nokia emphasizes the Flagship Stores aren't intended to compete with but compliment the over 300,000 outlets that make up its retail and operator channel globally. They'll serve as a sort of retail laboratory, however. "One important goal of the Nokia Flagship Store program is to determine the most impactful methods of retailing Nokia's product line, and sharing those learnings across Nokia's retail and operator channels," explained Crosbie.

Nokia rival Motorola opened a 'pop-up' store, called Destination Q, devoted to its new Q smartphone, at the site of the closed Terra Museum of American Art, last month. The two stores are only a block away from each other, with the Moto store at 666 N. Michigan.

While the Nokia store is meant to be a permanent fixture, the Motorola store is supposed to only last through the summer.