The word around the water cooler is of course that Google is collaborating with HTC on at least two Nexus phones this year. The phones, which are currently codenamed Marlin and Sailfish are expected to be announced later this year around September/October this year. Last week we saw rumoured specs for the smaller ‘Sailfish’ version, and today Android Police has released rumoured specs for the larger ‘Marlin’ phone.
There’s not much else to say, these are of course rumoured specs so a grain of salt is required. The rumoured specs for Marlin will include:
- Quad-core Qualcomm processor
- 5.5″ QHD (2560×1440) AMOLED display
- USB-C port
- 12MP rear camera, 8MP front
- Rear-mounted fingerprint scanner
- 4GB RAM
- 3450mAh battery
- Bottom-firing speakers
- 32/128GB of storage
- Bluetooth 4.2
Android Police believe the phone to have the same RAM, CPU and Camera module as the smaller ‘Sailfish’ Nexus, with the only differentiator being the smaller, lower resolution screen on the smaller phone. This would be an excellent strategy given the underpowered nature of the Nexus 5X which has been quite slow and buggy on every version of the handset we’ve come across.
At this years Code conference, an annual tech conference held by Re/Code every year, Google’s Sundar Pichai spoke about maintaining stronger control of devices released from the Nexus program. This includes building expanded functionality into the phones with more features on top of stock Android, so what we’ll see from the Nexus release this year is unclear.
The proposed spec is fairly powerful and if the same internals are offered for both model Nexus phones this year, it’s going to come down to what you are using the phone for as to your choice. The smaller phone will be more compact, but not as well suited for Google’s Daydream Virtual Reality platform with the lower resolution screen – it will still likely give a good experience, but a QHD resolution certainly shines when it comes to sticking a phone that close to your face.
When can we see more about the new Nexus phones? Well, Google has generally announced the phones in late September/early October before making them available through the Google Store around November, at least for limited regions. We may have to wait a little longer based on previous years Australian Nexus launches, but we certainly hope not too much longer.
What do you think of the rumoured specs for the phone?
I’m definitely going to upgrade my N5 to the Sailfish or Marlin. The question is: which one? I love the idea of one handed use which means the Sailfish is very tempting… but the bigger battery and QHD resolution for future daydream use is going to be too much to resist.
Marlin it is.
At this rate, I’ll end up with the 6P
It’s currently $719 from the Google AU store. cheapest legit that I’ve seen
Too small for me also, will either wait another year for a Tango Nexus or try the Note 7.
5.5″ is too small for me. Even 5.7 is too small. If they aren’t back up in 6″ territory this year I may drop my Nexus 6, which I had a terrible support experience with (but loved the device on 5.0), and jump to Apple. Basically I want: 6″ OLED front facing speakers Reliability If all I am going to get is OLED, I would rather pay a bit more and get a more reliable phone that I don’t need to reboot every day, and a swap and go experience if I have a fault. I want Android O to… Read more »
If this is going to be a Daydream ready phone, then the AMOLED is a requirement – although I would have expected them to look towards a higher resolution. However the bottom firing speakers sound questionable, since you would expect two speakers along the long edge of the phone, so once in the headset they could give positional audio. Maybe they will require headphones? Also note that this looks to be a step up on the HTC 10 specs. Particularly if the CPU/RAM/Camera are the same between the two Nexus models, that sailfish item might be the better bet for… Read more »
Bottom-firing speakers – Really?
Many have made the point that the HTC 10 uses the ear piece speaker as a tweeter and the bottom firing speaker for mid-lower end tones. It could be the same setup on the Nexus pair.