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First Details of the Samsung Nexus S Emerge

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The next Google-branded phone isn’t about to wow you in quite the way the Nexus One did. Yes, it’s a Google Experience phone running a very buggy build of what should be Gingerbread at this time, but if you were expecting something earth shattering turn away now. Gizmodo has a third-party hands-on with the device, and according to the person sending in the report we can pretty much expect a slightly modified Galaxy S phone. Call it the Nexus S (and we have every reason to believe it might just be).

gizmodo_nexustwo-1

Like the international version of the phone and unlike most of the US variants, the Nexus S will feature a front-facing camera that will undoubtedly take advantage of supposed video chat support built up around GTalk that is planned to be featured in future iteration of Android (even if it might not make Gingerbread at launch). The phone also seems to feature the same 4-inch Super AMOLED screen as the Galaxy S, but a “concave” front and tapered back provide a profile that [at the very least] feels slimmer. The phone still retains the slightly tacky, plastic-y feel of the Galaxy S line. The above image is a mock-up by Giz based on their sources description.

Color me disappointed, but I suppose with how much smartphone specs have rocketed since the original Nexus, it is getting harder everyday for a each phone to out-do the last. Read the full rundown on the Samsung Nexus S at the source link below.

[via Gizmodo]

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101 Comments

  1. can’t be, the same specs as the Galaxy S…must be a fake…wanna see a real upgrade!

  2. this is great news for all Galaxy S device owners, sure to increase development on this hardware

  3. Samsung Mobile = Nightmare experience not Google.

  4. Unfortunately, this is just what I expected. A nicer screen, Hummingbird processor and a front-facing camera isn’t enough to get me to leave my Nexus One.
    Had it been a next generation version of said processor I might be interested, but I’ll get Gingerbread soon enough on this phone, so if it’s as Gizmodo says, there’s not enough there to get me to upgrade.

  5. Mmmm.. if its on sprint I might get it…

  6. First

  7. i almost think that i would prefer the new MyTouch to this phone. I don’t know though. i think that i’ll take a wait and see on this one.

  8. What about processor? There are no real specs. Just some pictures of the case. Big friggin deal!

    This could very well have the new SnapDragon dual core 1.2Ghz processor in it in which case it would be a pretty big deal.

  9. I’m pretty envious of my Samsung owning friends larger devices. Call it over 40 eyes.

    I’d also like to see the front facing camera and gtalk for this phone as well as for the iPhone/iPod — that way I could gtalk with my daughter who has an iPod and that would be very 2001 (1968).

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWwo6JpMceg

  10. Interesting. I think next year Samsung will come with something even better to have comp with Tegra 2. I think right now Google and Samsung just are trying to get it out there.

  11. Looks exactly like a T-Mobile Vibrant. Because the original Galaxy S doesn’t look like this

  12. Oh no, no, please don’t let them use the Vibrant body.. anything but that. Am I the only one who sees how badly it just screams “cheapass Chinese iPhone 3 knockoff” ?

  13. Ugh but they need to skip the iPhone look. N move on I’m tired of seeing that! Make something unique looking

  14. Looks great to me. Why does everyone praise the Nexus one? I had one and it was the worst phone I’ve owned and it’s ugly. EVO is better, Vibrant is better, Epic 4G is better. I’ll be upgrading for sure. I have an EVO and the battery lasts 3 hours. Vibrant has no front camera. Epic 4G is too fat with keyboard. Sounds like the best Android device imho.

  15. i highly doubt that this is entirely true. until samsung announces the official details, this will all be considered rumor. imo, i think the samsung nexus will be more powerful than the galaxy s, and with it running stock android gingerbread, it’ll probably run alot faster too! along with a few more options, i’m sure it’ll be a solid piece of hardware!

  16. I am really surprised Google wouldn’t want to wait for next gen processors. I am however biased since I own an SGS phone I dont see any reason why this wouldnt be ported down the road.

  17. No thanks. I don’t want my phone to rock while using it on a flat surface. It just looks awkward.

  18. I would be completely sold if there was some type of metal body instead of plastic. If it was built like my nexus one, but with the bigger screen I wouldn’t mind buying it. Now if it had a keyboard…. Yeah I know to be a successor to the Nexus One it can’t have a keyboard. =P

  19. or instead of a dual core snapdragon, a dual core hummingbird which would be an even bigger deal :D

  20. If it’s anything like the N1, the best feature will be that it gets OS updates before competing phones.

  21. If it’s just a Galaxy S in different packaging, then unfortunately I’ll be taking a long wait and see. Heck, we don’t even know if the GPS will work.

    On the other hand, if its a true next-gen device, running a dual-core processor, I’m probably in on launch day.

    [Current G1 owner]

  22. Nice!!!!! id get this and sell my vibrant lol

  23. If this is a Galaxy S without any shit from Samsung on it, then I’m getting it.

  24. i don’t understand why google went with samsung. all of the previous dev phones, which included the nexus, have been htc, so why stop now? i really really really hope that this is fake because samsung is just awful.

  25. Which is exactly why I’m going wit the T-Mobile G2 its kinda like a successor to the Nexus One. This shxt Samsung take y’all musty assses back to the drawin boar because if y’all release this shxt like imma pop y’all fxckin eyes ous y’all gon piss a lot of Samsung Galaxy S owners off! N I’m gon be on ma HTC shxt faithfully

  26. Let’s hope those internals are something special, or Gizmodo feel for a prank. I’ve no experience of Samsung phones, but would prefer to see HTC make the next official Google phone.

  27. If its true byebye g2

  28. Samsung? oh heelllll no. Ill stick to htc thank you

  29. you know, for all samsung’s flaws (their reputation and the plasticky) feel of the galaxy S, this would still be a great device.

    At the end of the day the hummingbird is simply the best processor out there, and with stock gingerbread this thing should fly. And lets not kid ourselves the nexus one hardware is perfect. the graphics chip on the snapdragon is below par, and the speaker, considering the thing is meant to be a superphone, is frankly absolutely appalling.

    So this could be a decent upgrade – what more do we want? Best processor, screen, a front facing cam and software by google not samsung. About the only thing you could possibly level is maybe the casing could be a bit snazzier. But it’d do for me.

  30. good news for Galaxy S owners.

  31. If true hopefully a Vibrant upgrade will bring Stock Android on 2.3

  32. this would be so much better!!!!!!!

    http://designfabulous.blogspot.com/2010/07/htc-1.html

  33. im not getting this unless it was running on a dual core processor, otherwise im waiting for Motorola’s offering

  34. Depending on what happens November 8th, I’ll just wait to see what Motorola’s plans are for their Tegra 2 phone. Hopefully it gets a wide release like the Galaxy S did, so I can get one on Sprint.

  35. The specs are great jus please change the hardware

  36. Ooooh baby if this is true I can’t wait, don’t know why people are going on about next gen cpu’s the Galaxy S series has an amazing CPU and GPU! If this is a version of the Galaxy S with stock Android and no RFS im getting it :P

  37. The external look has to go! Like literally

  38. Looks nice but not sure how this pushes the envelope like it’s predecessor. The Nexus One served a purpose in pushing manufactures forward to higher spec’d devices. Not sure this does that. Maybe Google has an ace up it’s sleeve (Higher resolution, game changing gingerbread features, better GPU, etc.). The CPU in the galaxy s is very a capable we don’t need faster/dual core cpus, will only eat up more battery life.

  39. just wait and see. i’m tired of speculation.

  40. /sadface this is extremely disappointing, definately not a worthy successor comapred to the nexus one.

  41. It is possible that this is only a prototype and that the actual production phone will have build, design and material differences from the prototype. However, it is likely that the form factor will stay the same.

    Personally, I would love to have seen some more metal and a touchpad or trackball. But, I can understand why google is doing this. How can they launch gingerbread and not have a phone to launch it with?

  42. For a moment there, I almost regretted getting the G2. I know this is a mockup of what it’s going to look like, but jeeeeeez iPod Touch much?

  43. Wohoo for Samsung. I don’t whyu nexus owners are upset. The Samsung galaxy s gpu is equivalent to a Tegra2 and is the fastest phone gpu right now. If this is true Samsung Galaxy s users will get any update faster Han anyone else woot

  44. ahh damn they shouldve just slap stock android gingerbread on a epic 4g with more onboard memory and a hdmi and put it on verizon and i will ditch my droid2 for that phone. so im just gonna wait for the dual core motorola phone instead.

  45. I don’t mind samsung, but I hate the fact that it looks like iPhone!!

  46. It seems cool, but I was more or less looking of a big leap. I have the Vibrant and if the Nexus S has those issues, then I don’t think I’ll get it. I have only had my phone for 1 month so it hasn’t been long enough to start hating it yet. I’ll give it another year for the true N2.

  47. Why would Google go from HTC to Samsung. Samsung does a lot of things right but phones aren’t one them. Even if this phone had a 2gig cpu, 4gig RAM, 64gig internal mem, a screen with 1080p res, and a battery that never ran out, I still wouldn’t buy it. Just my opinion

  48. It’s not good news for Galaxy owners, and I don’t know why anyone would think that. If it doesnt have touchwiz and is stock Gingerbread Android then the Galaxy S phones will still have to wait in the wings for updates…Plus Google releases updates for Nexus 1 ….Samsung and Carriers release updates for Galaxy S…big difference people. Other than that…this sucks…

  49. I would rather no Nexus Two than that POS.

    Live long N1.

  50. I really do not like the looks of this mockup. Too much a copy of the iPhone 4. Saw a mockup yesterday (that has since been swapped) that was BEAUTIFUL! It was a very basic all-black rectangle (no rounded corners!). So sad if the Nexus Two ends up looking like an iPhone and having a 4″ screen. I want 4.3″! I realize there is like a 0.01% chance Google/Samsung is listening… :( I really hope we are being teased about the look of this thing. Also rumors of it having the same Hummingbird processor as the Galaxy S phones. Yeah, *right now* that is the BEST mobile processor in production. But this is the Flagship Google Phone! How about putting a next gen processor in it?

  51. Lol really now? I must say it would be tough to create a phone that beats the vibrant and galaxy S series those devices are top of the line and are only getting better I mean Jesus Christos the thing was overclocked to 1.6ghz for anything new to beat it would have to be made by samsung pretty much because there is no topping samsungs camera features, nor screen quality, yeah you can have a 4.1 and up screen but is it SAMOLED? and if its not its probably not as good quality although… SLCD may be competition. I have yet to find a camera phone that beats samsungs… 8mp sure great but features are important. To beat the vibrant it would have to have a dual-core made by samsung, intel, amd or something btw anyone know when they are gonna make a device with their processors? I know intel and amd have planned to.

  52. How is it a copy of the iPhone 4???? Lol and if you say FFC then you are retarded because in the us Nokia has been doing that for years, 5mp camera Samsung has been doing that for the last 3 as well as motorola and htc, operating system? iPhone is a compilation of so many phones its not even funny.

  53. If this makes it to Verizon I think it will be my next phone.

  54. looks like a vibrant with a camera and possibly flash

  55. to all of you nexus one owners bashing this… even if it has the exact same hardware as the galaxy s, it will still blow the nexus one away. the galaxy s is more powerful than the nexus one, the only hold back is touchwiz 3.0. even if this phone has the same guts as the galaxy s, with it running stock android, and if gingerbread is at least as fast as froyo, then i bet we would be looking at a minimum of 2200+ on the quadrant. on top of that, the real test would be how it handles real world apps. i have a vibrant, with the lag fix, and it flies. i bet with stock android it’ll be even faster than the sgs with lagfix. i think all the fanboys and samsung haters need to stop whining about this. in the end, google made the decision to go with samsung for the next google experience phone. google is the company that brought us android. they haven’t steered us wrong yet. all samsung is doing is giving them the hardware. google will be in control of the updates. so stop all the bashing, and wait to see what the specs and final design of this phone really are. this is all speculation, and prototype. it’s going to be a monster of a phone. it will be a true successor to the nexus one, otherwise google wouldn’t have chosen samsung to make this phone!

  56. I have no problem with samsung making the phone. I do have a problem with:
    -It being made out of plastic.
    -No LED notifications (I Love my track ball for notifications for different app’s)
    and thats it
    If it has LED notifications and a NON metal constructions ill buy it ohhh and it needs to be AT&T or Rogers capable

  57. samsung hardware plus google experience = win.

    sammy hardware is great but their updates suck. take them out od the update equation and uts pure win.

  58. Its not at all disappointing. Many accept that Samsung has the best hardware in the form of Samsung Galaxy S and Touchwiz is where it mainly falters. Infact, a google experience galaxy phone is what I always wanted as the processor speed is really good compared to other best phones in the market today. My feeling is Google will not go with one phone this time as their phone, instead I will see a Google experience phone from samsung as well as from motorola. The Tegra 2 processor phone will be from Motorola, we never know if the Samsung google experience phone has a Tegra 2 chip inside. Nvidia has already mentioned that samsung is one of their products big customer.

  59. Hey forgot to mention … Gizmodo is more Apple supportive website … thats my feeling … also Samsung has a better camera in the phone than a motorola or a HTC….

  60. Soon there will be a better phone than the Nexus One and then nexus one owners will finnally shut up >:)

  61. guess im keeping my nexus one for a while longer…..

  62. It’s worth mentioning that Gizmodo does zero research when writing Android-related articles, announces unbased rumors as absolute facts, and generally has an unspoken distaste toward Android and verbosely spoken love for iOS.

    Also note that the image is a poorly-constructed mockup. It’s incredibly doubtful that Samsung’s new phone will be called “Nexus [Anything]”, let alone Nexus S or Nexus 2.

    Please, Phandroid. I like you guys. Really, I do. But you make it hard to like you when you repost Gizmodo’s crap articles. They are very, very poor journalists. Please don’t support them or be like them at all.

  63. cheap plastic again? no please no, use aluminum for christs sake samsung!

  64. To truly be the next Nexus One, it has to be the platform and developer phone.

    In other words, it has to get the next version of Android soon after they announce it.

    Doesn’t necessarily need the nicest specs.

  65. It probably has a ridiculous blue tinted display just like the rest of the Galaxy phones. The inability of the Galaxy phones to display a crisp white background is an inexcusable defect.

  66. What I care most about is the battery life and needs to be on Verizon, and as long as it has the vanilla google UI it should be fast. I will sell my HTC Incredible for that Samsung screen and Google UI.

  67. ……oh god PLEASE let this come to major carriers. I’ll dump my HERO for this. i was willing to do it with the nexus one till they discontinued it for public purchase.

  68. Everyone blames touchwiz for the galaxy s being such a waste of space but the problems are much deeper routed than that.

    The whole implementation is messed up, largely with driver issues. This won’t go away on a Google experience phone. Samsung’s inept engineers and management will still be heavily involved and not even Google will be able to make up for that.

  69. IF IT HAS A BACK CAMERA FLASH and NOTIFICATION LED then im all in

    by the way im a nexus one owner and with google directly handling the updates and samsung the hardware other then the plastic body this is a EPIC FUCKING WIN

  70. Let’s just wait and see here. The N1 was by no means a perfect phone. Remember the multi touch issues my friends. I need better battery life and htc does not have that area together. I’m not a fan of samsung and the plastic but let’s not freak. Most end up getting a cover or body glove anyway. Plus I want stock android and I’m not into rooting to get it. Let’s checj out the real thing when it comes. To add. I hope they increase the specs too. But maybe htc has a point with this 800 mhz processor. If your software has hardware utilization maybe its not as big a deal as we think. Plus I’m not to worried about the lte. Because it wont be up to full coverage for a long while anyway.

  71. I think the Galaxy S is great, but with the Tegra 2 right around the corner, I can’t justify getting a Nexus Two/S right now. Having dual cores is just too big of a jump to simply not wait.

  72. Nooo, it’s so ugly ;(
    I used to love Samsung designs but lately they are all so shitty, now the only good thing left about their phones is good hardware. But crappy look, crappy build qulity and crappy soft are too much to cope with.

  73. yes I will probably sell my nexus one and get this one would have liked more hardware upgrade, loved my nexus one nice getting the latest updates

  74. YES!
    the biggest flaw with the my galaxy s is the software.
    if my galaxy s can piggypack the popularity of the nexus s i will see software updates for years to come ^^

  75. Does if have a LED flash, this was a stupid omission on the Galaxy S

  76. They should’ve waited until the dual-core A9s came out.

  77. Does anyone know what that weather widget is?

  78. @ Paul

    Stupid omission…or clever strategy, maybe?

  79. this photo is definitely fake… look at the front side of the phone and the left side is cut off. This photo is different from gizmodo post. This one does not have a centre button and gizmodo have.

  80. “The above image is a mock-up by Giz based on their sources description.”

    Read moar

  81. Bleech. With a larger screen and better specs it might have been worthy of the Nexus name.

  82. So disappointed…sticking with my droid x i guess

  83. Do you really need next gen phones if its (gingerbread… 2.3) only a minor update. It would be nice, but right now its overkill and a waste of battery to have a faster cpu. Let the chips mature and wait for honeycomb for dual cores.

  84. Don’t forget that the nexus one is listed as 800 x 480 but has been proven to only effectively be 6yy x 3yy which is pitiful. If that’s HTC’s fault then they have no business making androids. The SGS has more power than devs know what to do with, that’s not an issue, Samsung makes high quality cameras/lenses so we are good there. However the main thing we need is a screen to compete with the iPhone 4. I put my SGS next to my friends I4 and I was so embarrassed I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. My nexus and vibrant look like black and white TV’s from the 50’s next to the iphone4. What we need is better resolution than the I4, and the nexus is known for upping the Anty (even though it almost lowered the anty with its intentionally misleading resolution). So lets see a competitive phone already! I don’t like lagging behind stupid apple for this long!!! Give us an SGS with camera flash, dual mics, ffc, and much, much, much higher resolution. And top it off with gingerbread. Thank you. Incidentally, the form factor is ok, doesnt feel cheap to me and i owned a g1 and a mt3g so i know cheap!

  85. Hmm, just in case is true (which I don’t think so), but: Nexus One= HTC and 3.7″, Nexus Two= Samsung and 4″, So, what would be next?? Nexus 3= Motorola and 4.3″?? Hmm, sounds good…

  86. davis: not sure what you are talking about, my N1 is way sexier than the iPhone4… Galaxy S phones do feel like cheap toys though.

  87. Why google going to let Samsung build their next Nexus??? NOOO…. Samsung poor Customer’S satifaction, they #$%^*(*( up with the Galxay S, What to expect now???

  88. Well I’m hesitant whether to buy this over my N1, but it doesn’t have so many pros over it…
    I’ll probably wait on the support of xda developers, if it’ll have such great community as it is around N1 then I’m in.

  89. NO TEGRA TWO? FAIL!

  90. This is a funny thread….

    I dont think people understand how powerful the Galaxy s is.

    Let alone how awsome the screen is.

    No other company can Give you a Nexus 2 that will have the Screen/power ratio that Samsung can.

    On a 2.2+ vs 2.2+ phone platform the Hummingbird is comparable to the tegra 2 at this point.

    The QAUD for the Tegra 2 is around 1911 on 2.1

    A patched and optimized Samsung is 2550 on 2.1

    A nexus 1 on 2.2 is around 1200

    There are Samsung running 2.2 that are hitting 3600.

    So there is alot to be said for Correct and tuned software.

    I would bet the Tegra 2 hit the 35– to 4— range when its fleshed out.

    Hardly worth Giving up the Great screen on the galaxy.

    The only reason I would want the Tegra would be if We start to see Applications “BUILT FOR” the Tegra…..

    By that time We will be in to another generation of Phones anway.

  91. I have a N1 and I would gladly buy a N2 if it was based on the Galaxy S line. I don’t really like the plastic that Samsung uses, I like the Teflon coating on the N1 but the internals and the screen are awesome. I think it is a jump forward.

  92. This is believable. The Galaxy has the best screen of any phone out, which is attractive to Google I am sure. The hummingbird CPU was overclocked to 1.6ghz and achieved 78 fps and over 3000 in quadrant scores. This blows away any phone to date, so it makes perfect sense that google would use this as next google phone as it appears to have the best future possibilities. If they wanted a dual core cpu they would not be shipping this phone for another 12 months which they dont want either. This is exciting for Galaxy owners no doubt. I agree the feel of the phone is not as solid as some other phones, but that is my only complaint. Way easier to see this screen outside in sunlight than any lcd ( evo, droid, g2). Though the shape of N2 looks just like iphone, which is kind of lame to copy apple, but its a good feel in your hand.

  93. What’s with all the hate towards the NI and NI owners? You should all be grateful for what the NI did for Android. Before the NI you had the G1 and the My Touch. Look at what the manufacturers came up with in response to the standard set by the N1? No need for the Android community to start turning on each other.

  94. @cdogg- the galaxy s has the best screen of androids, not the “best screen out”. I don’t like saying it but the iPhone has a whopping 160 more pixels each way, it is definitely the best screen out. And the galaxy s’s SAMOLED is nice but I can’t tell the difference between it and my boss’s nexus one, except maybe for some video, and i compare them constantly (insecure much?) But maybe that’s because of the samsungs software? I mean my gallery freeze literally everytime I try to open it, so if software can affect screen quality negatively, Samsung would be the company to figure out how. Anyway lets just hope Google’s new keyboard kicks ass.

  95. @rich

    99 out of a 100 impartial people will tell you the Samsung Screen is the better screen…

    And THAT is at 2.1 or 2.2

    When 2.3 Lands and the Resolution can be raised on Android…

  96. who cares if the iphone4 has a higher resolution than the SAMOLED in the galaxy s. just cause a screen is a higher resolution doesn’t mean that it’s a better screen. look at the tvs… you have some 720p screens that are better than other 1080p screens. resolution is just a number. when you are looking on a screen the size of the ones we have on our phones, we won’t see much, if any difference. the naked eye can only see so much. even though the iphone has a higher resolution, i think the SAMOLED in my phone has much better contrast. darker blacks, brighter colors, and the movies look like they have much more depth. i’ll take a “SLIGHTLY” lower resolution screen if that mean improving everything else.

  97. NO!!!! Come on Google, this should not be the Nexus 2 simply due to the fact that it looks so much like an iphone. I would be okay if this turns out to be a Samsung branded Google Experience phone, but I will lose faith in Google if this is branded as a Google Nexus 2.

  98. why is everyone complaining about the looks of the supposed N2? N1 was ugly as hell.
    Anyways, I read somewhere that Samsung produces Iphone4’s hardware or something like that and if thats true… Android can’t exactly beat Apple using the same hardware or company that makes the rival phones.

    @Huasamay Motorola has worst customer satisfaction. Droid X not getting any updates past 2.2, Cliq and Cliq XT finally getting 2.1 when all others are already on 2.2, the amount of bugs in the Motorola devices. Switched from Motorola when the SGS came out and I could not be happier

  99. I have the Samsung S and can honestly say I regret selling the N1 for this piece of *****. Sure the hardware is amazing but with no good “software” (It is NOT Google/Android that is the perpetrator) to run it that is pretty useless!

  100. Honestly tho, a Galaxy S without TouchWiz and super quick updates should be a damn good phone.

  101. Hmm… it *is* interesting to see them start to model their devices after Apple’s own aesthetic sense. On the one hand I wish the rest of the tech industry would stop just copying Apple, I think they’re going to blur the lines here between Apple’s “hip” style and having a *real* OS platform for their users.

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