How does a nice batch of Android rumors to round out your week sound? Good? Good. Now before we dive in, it's worth mentioning that this information came from an anonymous source over at 4chan, so it'd probably be wise to take these rumors with a few grains of salt. I know I am. According to the source, a Samsung rep visited his place of work and not only showed off an Ice Cream Sandwich-powered Nexus Prime (referred to as a "Galaxy Nexus"), but also had details on the Galaxy S III. There's a lot of info to wade through here, so we're going to break it down bullet point style:
Samsung Galaxy Nexus
The source claims that the next Nexus will go by the name Samsung Galaxy Nexus, which he says Verizon elected to have an exclusive deal on when it passed on the Galaxy S II. Allegedly resembling an Epic 4G Touch with a Nexus S-like curved display, the Galaxy Nexus is said to be packing a 4.65-inch 1280x720 Super AMOLED Plus display, 1.5GHz dual-core Exynos processor, 16GB storage, 1GB RAM, 2,000mAh battery, and Ice Cream Sandwich. The body of the phone is reportedly made of metal (woohoo!) and measures 8.8mm thick. As far as performance goes, the source said that the Galaxy Nexus is "blazingly fast." With specs like that, I would certainly hope it is.
Ice Cream Sandwich
Moving on to the OS that's said to be powering the mythical Galaxy Nexus, Anonymous says that the version of Android said to be running on the new Nexus is 2.4.1. The OS itself is described as working like Gingerbread but with a major facelift. Said facelift reportedly includes things like smoother menus, "glossy" screens, and fast animations. The app drawer is said to feature different sections for things like "Apps" and "Games. Additionally, ICS will reportedly offer a preview mode for widgets. Other improvements include redone apps like Gmail and Calendar and a better browser with tabs at the bottom, improved pinch to zoom, and better rendering.
Samsung Galaxy S III
Rounding out the rumor rumble are alleged details on the Galaxy S III. The Samsung rep didn't have a device on-hand, Anonymous says, but he/she did have slides with info. Reportedly set for a debut at MWC 2012 and a worldwide launch in mid-2012, the GSIII is said to feature a 4.65-inch "Super AMOLED III" display with a resolution of 1280x1024 and 352ppi. Other features slated to make it into the Galaxy S III include a 2.0GHz quad-core processor, 32GB storage, 1.5GB RAM, 10-megapixel camera, 1080p video capture at 60fps, 2,250mAh battery, and ICS beneath "TouchWiz 5." This new version of Samsung's skin is supposedly co-developed by Google and is less "intrusive" than previous versions of TouchWiz.
Whew. As far as the Galaxy Nexus bit of this rumor goes, a lot of the info given by Anonymous matches up with some stuff we've heard in the past, just with a different name. For example, the Exynos processor part is new, but the 1.5GHz dual-core portion lines up with previous rumors. The Ice Cream Sandwich stuff also mostly fits with some leaked shots of the OS we saw last month. And the Galaxy S III deets? It's all possible, but I'm not sure I'd read into it too much yet considering how far off it (reportedly) still may be.
So that about wraps it up. Again, this is all a rumor at this point and should be treated as such, but that doesn't mean we can't waste away our Friday evening discussing. For those of you interested, the original thread can be found right here. When you're done, go ahead and drop your thoughts, opinions, hopes, dreams, or whatever else in the comments below. We're going to start a pot of coffee and then we'll be all ears.
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