Tech site Android Police is reporting that Google’s next Nexus smartphone will likely be made by Motorola. Dubbed Nexus 6, the device will most probably be a 6-inch device. A leaked image of the Nexus 6 (codenamed Shamu) suggests the phone will essentially be a scaled-up version of the new Moto X. The Nexus 6 will reportedly also pack in some impressive hardware specs, such as a 2560-by-1440 (QHD) display, and a large 3,200+ mAh battery.
If you were hoping that the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus was merely an outlier, and that smartphones would remain sensibly sized for at least a little longer, it would seem you were sadly mistaken. By the year’s end, your 5-inch HTC One M8 or 5.1-inch Galaxy S5 will be on the smaller end of the spectrum. There had been a long-running rumor that there would be a smaller Shamu smartphone — something around the 5.2-inch range — but all of the latest leaks strongly point towards the Nexus 6 being a 5.9-inch device.
Android Police has received enough leaked information recently that it’s now reporting with “9 out of 10 confidence” on the Nexus 6′s hardware specs. The device will closely resemble the new Moto X — it will have the same aluminium frame around the edge, a similar 13-megapixel rear shooter with dual ring flash — but the body will be significantly engorged to cater for a new, 2560×1440 5.9-inch display (496 PPI). The larger body means there’ll also be a huge battery — 3,200 mAh or greater.
Apparently the Nexus 6/Shamu/Nexus X will also have dual front-facing speakers (the Moto X only has one), and the power button and volume rocker will move farther down the right hand side of the phone. There’s no word on whether the Nexus 6 will be customizable like the Moto X, but I doubt it. The “turbo charging” feature present on the Moto X, which can imbue the phone with 8 hours of use from use 15 minutes of charging, will also be coming to the Nexus 6.
Curiously, though, we don’t know much about the internals of the Nexus 6. Previous leaks suggested the Nexus 6 would be helmed by the Snapdragon 805 — which makes sense, as it’s still the best chip on the market. This is slightly at odds, however, with Google’s work to support 64-bit processors with Android L and rumors that the Nexus 9 tablet will be powered by the 64-bit Denver Tegra K1 chip. This isn’t to say that Android L will run badly on 32-bit processors, but a 64-bit version of Android could have been better.
In any case, we’ll find out everything about the Nexus 6 (and Nexus 9) soon enough: Both devices should be released in October, alongside Android L (which looks like it’ll be called Lollipop, incidentally).
