Google retired the Nexus 7 this week, which follows up on the retirement of the company's Nexus 5. This better mean we're going to see some major hardware announcements at Google's I/O conference in late May—or Google may risk losing control of Android's direction.
The Nexus phones and tablets are small in sales, but mighty in influence. They are the guaranteed pure-Google gadgets, showing the direction Google wants to go in with its software and where it's trying to drag Android manufacturers. While not many people own Nexus phones, they tend to be coders, designers, and influencers. To some extent, Nexus is the glue that holds Google's Android ecosystem together.
Google made a big Nexus step forwards with its recent announcement of Google Fi, its hybrid wireless carrier. By combining Sprint, T-Mobile, and Wi-Fi, Google Fi is supposed to show virtual operators how to do things, injecting more competition into the wireless space. It's a stab at one concept of 5G: a system that skips between several different kinds of networks invisibly to the user.
Google Fi is now only compatible with the Nexus 6, which is a huge phablet. Tablet-wise, all Google has left in its Nexus department is the relatively unsuccessful Nexus 9, which has an interesting if little-used Nvidia processor but doesn't hit the sweet spot in Android demand, which is for a smaller, less-expensive but still high-quality tablet.
Yes, we're seeing lots of affordable unlocked Android phones out there; the Huawei SnapTo, the Moto G, and Blu's lineup all come to mind. But none of them promise to always deliver the best pure Google experience, and none of them have really seized the hearts of power users and developers.
My Nexus Dreams
So what should be in the new Nexus 5, if there is a new Nexus 5?
Let's start by targeting a $399 or $349 unlocked price. The Huawei SnapTo has shown that you can get a decent quality Android smartphone with LTE as low as $179, but Nexus developers probably want a little more oomph, and the screen I'm about to ask for is expensive.
Along with Google Fi, virtual and augmented reality are big focus for Google right now. That means having a super-dense screen and a really great GPU, for applications like Google Cardboard. I just don't see a good chip solution out there, which may be part of why Google is holding back.
Qualcomm's processor lineup this year is uninspiring, although Google may want a Qualcomm MDM9625 modem to enable Google Fi capabilities. The Snapdragon 810 has proved troublesome, and the 808 just isn't a huge improvement over last year's 805. Mediatek is catching up on application speeds, but hasn't been getting great reviews for graphics. The Nvidia X1 won't fit in a phone. Who knows? Maybe the Nexus will be the first Snapdragon 820 phone.
We'll need a 2K screen for that virtual reality, too. So where are we going to save money? On the camera, maybe. For Google, camera capabilities have always been more about machine vision and less about images for humans. An 8-megapixel main camera and even a 2-megapixel front camera might be just fine.
The real topper, of course, is the software: pure Google, unlocked and ready for hacking and development.
So who's going to make this thing? Either Lenovo (which owns Motorola) or Huawei might be good guesses. Both companies have shown that they can keep costs down while keeping quality up, and China is a major strong point for Android right now - even though it isn't Google's version of Android.
What would you like to see in a new Nexus 5—or even a Nexus 7? Tell us.