Samsung Nexus Prime rumours round up

Ahead of Samsung's Unpacked event in Hong Kong, we take a look at the rumours surrounding the Nexus Prime Android smartphone to see what's in store

Previously, the Samsung Nexus Prime was due to be revealed at Samsung’s ‘Unpacked’ event on October 11, but it was postponed, allegedly out of respect for the death of iPhone creator Steve Jobs. The new date is scheduled for October 19 in Hong Kong.

Although Samsung never confirmed the ‘Unpacked’ event was about the Nexus Prime, at the Dreamforce 2011 event in September this year Google CEO Eric Schmidt revealed Ice Cream Sandwich would launch in October and this tied in neatly with Samsung’s launch event.

It’s been held for some time that the new Nexus handset would run on the latest version of Google’s Android operating system, 4.0 ‘Ice Cream Sandwich’ (ICS) as the debut device for the new platform build. Previous Nexus devices have also been used to launch fresh Android builds.

The rumours started back in May this year, when Google’s Andy Rubin confirmed to AndroidandMe that the then-announced Ice Cream Sandwich would be arriving on what was, at the time, dubbed the ‘Google Nexus 3’.

At one point, in June to be precise, BGR reported that the Prime was called the ‘Nexus 4G’ and would feature a ‘1.2GHz or 1.5GHz CPU’ running either an ‘OMAP 4460 or a, ultra low-power 28nm Krait-based Snapdragon’ chipset.

Other listed features at the time included a 720p HD screen, the fact that it would be a button-less device, 4G LTE capability and 1GB of RAM.

Later in the month BGR revealed the new name of ‘Nexus Prime’ as well as confirming the Super Amoled Plus HD display and OMAP4460 chipset.

In early August, Korean news site Electronic Times reported the Nexus Prime’s launch as being set for October with a 4.5-inch display and a rumoured 1.5GHz processor on the OMAP chipset.

By the end of August Samsung had officially yet inadvertently confirmed it was behind the Nexus Prime, according to a report from geek.com:

‘While attempting to squash a rumored leak of the firmware for Samsung’s upcoming wonderphone, the legal team at Samsung accidentally seems to have confirmed that the device is in fact the Nexus Prime and is, in fact, being made by Samsung.’

Video footage emerged in early October via Romanian gadget site gadget.ro showing the Ice Cream Sandwich system in operation.

As it’s a frontal view of the phone, the video didn’t show much of the actual device other than the expansive 4.6-inch touchscreen.

One significant point, though, is the video shows hard evidence of the Nexus Prime as a button-less device and instead relying on ICS’ contextual menu buttons inherited from the tablet specific Honeycomb 3.0.

Earlier rumours suggested the Nexus Prime would feature a curved form factor and curved glass display. This was proven true with Samsung’s teaser trailer for the ‘Unpacked’ event when a noticeably curved device appeared in profile at the end of the video footage.

A spec line-up which BGR claims came from a ‘trusted’ source stated the Prime will have a dual core ARM Cortex-A9 processor, clocked at 1.2GHz and running the TI OMAP 4460 chipset.

The same spec list reports 1GB of RAM, 32GB of onboard storage, a 1,750 mAh battery and, despite rumours in September that the Nexus Prime’s display resolution would disappoint, it confirmed a 1280x720 HD curved glass display.

Pictures and video are said to be handled by a 5-megapixel primary with 1080p HD video capture, with a 1.3-megapixel secondary thrown in.

An onboard NFC chip is on the cards and connectivity capability will include LTE(4G),HSPA and Wi-Fi.

This latest rumour seems to be quite a sensible spec line-up for the next Nexus phone, though, rumours are still circulating regarding that possible 1.5GHz processor.

With the ‘Unpacked’ event in Hong Kong imminent, we’ll find out soon enough just what the score is with the Nexus Prime. Be sure to tune into our live blog for all the news.

]]>