Update: After speaking with our very own Matt Booth, he brought up a very good point that may prove some of this information as inaccurate. Samsung would be extremely unlikely to use a Texas Instruments SoC in favour of their own Exynos SoC. The main differences are, the clock speed and GPU used. The OMAP4460 uses a 1.5GHz Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A9 with a PowerVR SGX540 GPU. The Exynos is a 1.2GHz Dual-Core ARM Cortex-A9 but coupled with the Mali-400 MP GPU. These are almost the same, as well as both supporting ARM’s SIMD engine (Media Processing Engine), which is known to have significant performance advantages over Nvidia’s Tegra 2. Did you stick with me there?
According to information given to Boy Genius Report and following on from previous reports about the Nexus 4G, it does seem as though Samsung are the likely manufacturers for the next Google Nexus phone, codenamed Prime. It is said to be the first handset to pack Google’s latest announced version of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich. The so called “Super Phone” is said to pack an insane 720P HD display, dubbed “Super AMOLED HD” which was reported previously, pushing the handsets resolution up to 1280×720. Also confirmed was the processor, that being the TI OMAP4460, the same SoC used in the new ARCHOS 80 G9 and 101 G9 Honeycomb tablets announced last week. Want to read into it a little more? hit the break
If all this rumour/speculation or even evidence is true, then release should be sometime around September. It lines up with other reports that Samsung is readying a handset that will not use the “Galaxy” moniker and will be released in time to compete with the new iPhone, also rumoured to be released in September. It also fits with the availability time for the OMAP4460 SoC, which is slated for Q3. It would make sense for this “Super Phone” to both be released in the timeframe for reasons already covered but also to be a Nexus handset and not part of the Galaxy range, especially considering Samsung have just released their new flagship, the Galaxy S II. Samsung have been very good at not releasing handsets into the market that directly compete with existing handsets they have in a lineup. Releasing a Nexus handset would allow that to happen without causing too much issue.
the galaxy s 2 is actually a fantastic phone. You can nlame samsung all you want bt it comes down to compatibilty on multiple levels. Galaxy s lagged with previous versions in android but didnt crash. then when updated to 2.2 i found it wasnt the lag, tho it was still present but the crashing and freezing. updating to 2.3 has made significant improvement but i found the biggest downfall to honestly be RAM related. original just doesnt have enough. the s2 at a minimum utilises, while doing nothing, what the s1 had as a maximum. i kniw things like… Read more »
I’m really unhappy with Google’s partnering with Samsung on the current Nexus’. I’d have to say, the worst phone I’ve owned was the Galaxy S, and when I side-graded to the HTC Desire HD, I honestly looked into the SII, and found the build quality to be almost identical (to the S). I’m sooooooo happy with my Desire HD, it’s proven to be much more reliable (S was being reset 2-3 times a day with moderate use, running the same applications and modifications, the HD gets reset once every 3 days with heavy use), and doesn’t vibrate randomly when I… Read more »
I don’t know – the Nexus S is a star of a handset, showing manufacturers how beautiful a bloatware free experience can be. While not top of the range on release, it is solid in specs
i hope not. IMHO the Nexus S was a complete and utter failure in what the Nexus line is/was meant to be- it is meant to raise the bar for android devices- The Nexus One did that but the Nexus S was barely a blip on the radar.
If they do I hope they do raise the bar but i reckon they will just do like they did for the Nexus S and this nexus may well be pretty much a rebadged SGSIII
Agreed, I had high hopes for the Nexus S which were dashed upon its announcement. I reckon the SGS III rumours are just the 1.6ghz SGS II, in which case it’s more of an SGS 2.5.
I also believe that LG is more likely to be the manufacturer of the Nexus Prime considering Samsung made the last one. That would make the SAMOLED rumour unlikely to be true but the OMAP more likely
re Update: The thing you have to remember about Samsung Mobile is that they don’t just walk next door to their own factory to get the memory, CPUs and GPUs – they actually have to ‘bid’ against other manufacturers (and internally against other devisions manking phones etc) for the Samsung chips.
So although it wouldn’t make sense for Samsung to use an external chipmaker’s product, it may well be likely.
I agree with this.
Samsung have to bid against “themselves”, so going with Texas Instruments can happen and I believe has happened in some previous devices.
yeah I am aware of that and that also makes alot of sense, especially with using their own stocks of Exynos on a handset that isn’t really theirs, however the Nexus S is billed as a Samsung handset rather then a Google handset in my opinion.
Indeed. Samsung pushed the Nexus S quite a lot more than HTC pushed the Nexus One, even though it’s not that much of an upgrade over the Nexus One. It just seems *stupid* for Samsung to use their high-end processor –that needs to be in their current flagship phone (Galaxy S II)– on another device that could be better than it. From how I see it (and my own opinion of this), if this rumour is true and Samsung are working on a better device than their current flagship, they’d be taking a massive risk of biting their own hand… Read more »
I agree with you, but having it be a Nexus S doesn’t hurt their customer base who purchase the Galaxy line, to them it’s a different handset and line altogether. Even though we know different
I don’t think people are all that interested about the name of the device, are they? If they see something spec’d better than the top-end Galaxy S II, they’re going to go for that and with Samsung putting their heart and soul into marketing the Galaxy S II, I can see this hurting them.
In-tah-rest-ing
“if this rumour is true and Samsung are working on a better device than their current flagship, they’d be taking a massive risk of biting their own hand as the device would be part Google and part Samsung”
do keep in mind that it’s widely-reported that they often put the part-manufacturing contracts for Apple before their own, purely because it is more profitable, and thus this may be the same basis for a Google Nexus-branded phone receiving a greater apparent priority than their own flagship phone
I personally think that the Nexus Prime will be to the Galaxy S II what the Nexus S was to the Galaxy S. Similar specs, but not toppling Samsung’s flagship. I agree with Buzz, it wouldn’t make sense for Samsung to develop the SGSII as their pride and joy, only to make a phone for Google that’s better than their own. Not saying it can’t happen, but it just seems kinda unlikely. So I think the two phones will have very comparable specs to one another. Guess we’ll wait and see. If all this ends up being true, and the… Read more »
i think it would be weird for samsung to do it twice in a row..?
i liked the previous rumours of it being LG
From my experiences with LG, I really hope it’s not them.
Lets just see how the Optimus Black & Optimus 3D go, but until then, LG do have to prove themselves for this one if the Nexus 4G falls into their hands