Next month Google will be holding its annual I/O Developer Conference and it’s normally the time that the company announces its new line of Android-based products and even a newAndroid OS itself.
Well, it’s widely expected that Google will be announcing a new Google Nexus smartphone (as the name states, the 5th in line), but rumours are appearing online that this may not be the case. SidhTech reports that instead of the next generation of Nexus handsets Google will instead be releasing an updated Nexus 4 smartphone with 4G/LTE connectivity and a larger 32GB storage capacity.
However, it’s looking like the tech specs aren’t the only things to be updated as the rumour also states that the updated Nexus 4 will be the handset to run the next iteration of the Google Android operating system currently dubbed Key Lime Pie.
There are good reasons behind not releasing the next Nexus handset after just year as the Nexus 4 only hit the shelves just a few weeks before Christmas, so the handset is still within its first 6 months of release.
On the flip side, Google has a history of releasing slightly upgraded versions of its hardware a few months after the initial release (see the Google Nexus 7 tablets) so it does all seem to make sense to release a slightly updated handset. More storage and the addition of 4G LTE connectivity are both things that many felt were missing from the Nexus 4, so perhaps Google has taken reviews in to account and is looking to remedy them with an updated model.
What we will also expect is that the Google I/O conference will feature a new Nexus tablet device, as the Nexus 7 tablet is now over a year old. We’ve heard rumours of a 7-inch Full HD Nexus 7 sequel, but so far we’ve had nothing solid to go on.
This does mean that Google may be holding off a Nexus 5 release until Q4 of the year… but we don’t have a problem with that as long as Google can sort out its stocking and delivery issues from the Nexus 4’s release.
Google I/O will kick off on the 15th of May and runs until the 17th.