Samsung’s Galaxy Note 7, announced this past Tuesday, is the first of several flagship smartphones to be announced this fall. With the Note 7 being official, Speculators Anonymous must now look forward to devices like the Apple iPhone, LG V20, and the next gen Nexus Duo at this point. For all intents and purposes, today we will get our speculation and prediction fix from the Nexus line.
Rumor round-ups thus far tell us that we can expect HTC to manufacture both Nexus devices this year, operating under the pseudonyms “Sailfish” and “Marlin”. Sailfish is expected to be the smaller of the two with a 5-inch display, while Marlin will allegedly feature a 5.5-inch display.
I admit that I’m pretty excited for HTC to make this year’s Nexus devices. While I may not have always been a fan of HTC’s decisions spec-wise (particularly with the M9) I’ve almost always loved HTC’s hardware designs. I’m not terribly concerned that the new Nexus devices will be “ugly”. Besides, I think if we can get over the odd-looking camera on the back of the Nexus 6P, we can probably get over anything.
What I am concerned about are the two factors that Nexus devices have been missing the mark on: expandable storage and battery life.
I am not convinced that the reason expandable storage isn’t included is to keep costs low. There are some really cheap smartphones out there that manage to utilize microSD cards. I realize that many people have moved on from this “ancient” way of expanding storage given that cloud storage is now widely available and accepted. But just because something is old doesn’t mean that it’s bad, and I think consumers by and large are still vocal in their desire to keep the microSD card slot around. Even Samsung brought back this “feature”.
Additionally, I wish that the Nexus had better battery life. The Nexus 5X is a wonderful device, but its battery life isn’t really all that great. The Nexus 6P lasts longer given that it does have a larger battery, but I would still like to see one device that really buckles down on great battery life. Software tweaks help, particularly in Android N where the Doze setting will receive a serious upgrade of its own. But a larger battery certainly couldn’t hurt the cause, and I’d like to think that it would be a welcome addition to the current smartphone line-up.
The Nexus line is kind of a jack-of-all trades, master of none in that it does most things adequately, but there isn’t one feature that it really excels in aside from being among the first to receive major updates and using stock Android. And maybe that’s just part of the trade-off that makes these devices so affordable.
I personally think these are changes that could boost morale for the Nexus (well, that and better marketing). A microSD card slot and a big battery may seem like it’s heading in a backwards direction, and they might not be the “sexiest” (does anybody else think it’s weird to describe a phone as sexy?) upgrades, but they’re important, nonetheless. I would even go so far as to say those are the two most requested features of any smartphone. It would also be nice if HTC and Google re-implemented wireless charging this year; it was backwards to remove it from the 5X and 6P last year. I’ve always felt that wireless charging was an excellent secondary back-up option, considering how rough people are about plugging and unplugging their phones.
Readers, what are you hoping to see from this year’s Nexus line? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below!