Rumor has it, the Nexus 6 is dead. And so is the entire Nexus program. According to several reports, Google plans to kill the Nexus program in favor of a new initiative called Android Silver.
Android Silver will reportedly be open to several manufacturers. LG, the company that was thought to be developing the defunct Nexus 6, is rumored to be one of the companies involved. So is Motorola.
Intel suggests that devices that fall under the Android Silver umbrella will get quick software updates, will offer high-end hardware, and will launch in the United States, Germany and Japan. These are all hallmarks of Nexus smartphones and tablets. Perhaps, the Nexus program will live on, just with another name.
Despite all this, we’ve continued to hear about the Nexus 8, a rumored Nexus tablet and one that is supposedly being developed by HTC. A recent report from CNET, citing Rhoda Alexander, director tablet and monitor research at IHS Technology, asserts that Nexus 8 will be built by HTC. A report from Digitimes, a publication that has a mixed track record, backs up those claims.
If that’s true, it would certainly be fitting. HTC developed Google’s first Nexus smartphone, the Nexus One, and if the Nexus 8 is really the last Nexus-branded device, the program would come full circle.
Of course, those are just rumors. What about evidence? Well, there’s that too. Myce, a site that tracks code and issues in the Chromium bug tracker, discovered numerous references to an unknown device codenamed “flounder.” This is interesting because in the past, Google has used aquatic code names for Nexus products. The Nexus 10, for instance, is called “manta”.
We’ve even seen the name “flounder” emerge, albeit briefly, at Google’s Android Open Source project. The reference in AOSP also contained the following references:
project device/htc/flounder/
f6f0fe7 flounder: fix KGDB port
d9a03bc flounder: take out conservative cpufreq governor a.o. extraneous stuff
091c1c1 flounder: add Power HAL
project device/htc/flounder-kernel/
6090a06 flounder: update kernel prebuilt
It doesn’t confirm an HTC Nexus tablet outright but it sure points in that direction. At the very least, it matches up with rumors.
So an HTC tablet, perhaps the Nexus 8, appears to be in development. So what about its launch date? Well, rumors suggest that the device will arrive sometime in the middle part of the year, before Google shifts over to the Android Silver program.
The Nexus 7 sports a 7-inch display but the Nexus 8 may have a display that’s larger than 8-inches. Digitimes points to a larger 8.9-inch display, in line with the display size of the Kindle Fire HDX, but an inch larger than the iPad mini with Retina Display.
Oddly enough, we haven’t heard much about the Nexus 8′s other supposed specifications. Information obtained from Google’s code suggests that the company could be looking into a 32-bit or 64-bit processor from NVIDIA. Google used the company’s Tegra 3 processor inside of the original Nexus 7 but last year’s model utilized a Snapdragon S4 Pro chip from Qualcomm.
AndroidPit claims that the device will instead feature an Intel 64-bit processor. The new processor will allegedly be a Moorefield chip clocked at well over 2GHz.
Finally, the Nexus 8 price. Digitimes believes that the Nexus 8 could be priced at $299. That’s $70 more expensive than the Nexus 7 which starts at $229. Alexander agrees with this assessment and states that the “expectation is this will be a lower volume product, carrying a premium price tag to support the specifications.”