Finnish handset maker Nokia Corp. on Tuesday introduced its first mobile phone based on the MeeGo operating system.

The first MeeGo-based handset, called N9, runs on MeeGo 1.2 Harmattan, a Linux-based operating system that has been created by Nokia in partnership with world’s renowned chip-maker Intel.

Nokia’s MeeGo-based smartphone has emerged at a time when the world’s largest handset maker is making transitions to Microsoft’s Windows mobile platform.

Unveiling the new smartphone at the Nokia Connection 2011 event in Singapore, chief executive Stephen Elop stressed that the company was maintaining its focus on Microsoft’s Windows mobile platform.

Announcing the first MeeGo-based phone, Elop said, “Today is summer solstice. In many cultures, including in Finland, the solstice is celebrated as the start of something new, and today is the start of something new for Nokia.”

The MeeGo-based N9 comes equipped with a 3.9-inch AMOLED Gorilla glass-made touchscreen that offers a resolution of 854 by 480 pixels. The new handsets also features a 1 GHz ARM Cortex A8 OMAP3630 CPU, an 8MP Carl Zeiss camera with HD video recording capability, support for 16:9 widescreen video playback & Dolby decoding, built-in near field communication (NFC) chip, turn-by-turn drive & walk navigation, 512 MB of RAM, Wi-Fi, GPS and support for HTML5.

Elop didn’t answer whether the N9 will also be the last Nokia phone to adopt the MeeGo platform.