Nexus 2016 Rumor Round-up: Specs, Features and What We Want!

By Ankit

| Published: Saturday, March 5, 2016, 12:14 [IST]

With Google's Nexus smartphone being the most popular among the Android ecosystem, frequent rumors about the following launches, are expected. With reports coming in that suggest LG would not be making any more Nexus devices for Google, HTC is looking to be the next potential handset maker.

Fresh rumors have now surfaced that the new premium Nexus smartphone would be on the lines of the to-be launched HTC M10. It is also being speculated that HTC will be making not one but two Nexus devices, both of which are expected to arrive at this year's Google I/O conference.

Here are the rumored featured and specifications that we can expect on the new Nexus smartphone by HTC in 2016.

#1

With the launch of the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus last year, 3D Touch - or a pressure-sensitive display in general - has been the hot new topic in the tech industry, with OEMs like Huawei and Gionee launching phones with the same feature. While it isn't a necessary smartphone requirement yet, 3D Touch seems like a ‘nice' feature to be incorporated onto the next Google devices, believes the Mountain View giant.

Even the display vendors seem to be skeptical about the trend in sales of their 3D Touch units, but Google is a brand known to tread on the road not taken and the resultant figures usually pay off.

#2

A no-brainer this, the next Nexus smartphone of 2016 will come with the next major release from Android, that is Android N. While there has been no final confirmation on the new software's details, we can surely say that the new HTC Nexus will have the next version of Android, 7.0 or whatever it the build number is. Android N is expected to have features like Tap to Unlock, Quick Settings Menu, Tablet Multitasking, and many more.

#3

The flagship mobile processor for 2016, from Qualcomm, is the Snapdragon 820. Having already debuted with the Xiaomi Mi 5 and the LeEco Le Max Pro, the Snapdragon 820 promises to be almost 80% faster than the Snapdragon 810 and also solve the infamous heating issues that its predecessor had to face. Coupled with the Adreno 530 GPU, this new processor is nothing short of a beast and when optimized with stock Android, will definitely pack quite a punch.

#4

The Nexus smartphones of 2016 will reportedly have screen sizes of 5 and 5.5 inches, respectively. This is a rather odd move where the mobile world is moving towards bigger screens and Google is expected to crop their displays, down from the 5.2 and 5.7 inch screens of 2015's Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P. This is probably being done to make the Nexus 5X's successor, a perfect compact smartphone, while making the Nexus 6P's successor, much easier to hold in the hand despite retaining the advatages of a phablet.

#5

Although Vivo has already launched a smartphone with 6GB of RAM already, it is highly unlikely that the new Nexus smartphones will have more than 4GB of RAM in either the cheaper or the premium version. While the memory is supposed to higher on the flagship model, the successor of the Nexus 5X will also have more than 3GB of RAM, up from the currently two gigabytes.