Nexus 3 spotted in the wild? Seems possible.

Update: Looks like it could well be a fake.. things aren’t adding up. For further info, have a look at the TechHog open letter here.

What you’re looking at above – thanks to TechHog – could well be the first image in the wild of a future Nexus 3 (the name a few sites have chosen to give the device). It’s a device in the hands of ‘a buddy that works in the Android Dev Labs’, and most interestingly, it lacks buttons at the bottom of the touch screen. Some devices have gone with less than the standard 4 buttons adorning most Android devices – the Galaxy S is a good example – but this developer device has no buttons at all.

Google has apparently been in talks with HTC and LG over who the next manufacturer of Google’s flagship device, and it is plausible that this device is the next one – although it could equally be a non-descript handset for testing. Announcements regarding Ice Cream Sandwich have indicated that stationary buttons won’t necessarily be required, indicating that this could well be the next Android flagship device.

However, it is but mere speculation on our part, and on behalf of other bloggers.

Something that does lend some suspicion to the story, and may well fuel the rumours, is that the original post on TechHog has been removed, and replace with this statement:

(Photo removed per request)

(Information removed per request)

Sorry everyone, I’ve been politely asked to remove the information from this page regarding the 3rd Nexus. I apologize for the inconvenience.

Who asked for it to be taken down? HTC, LG, Google? Guess we won’t know for awhile.