Some leaks suck. Your water bill goes up, its a mess, carpet can get ruined. Some leaks are freaking awesome. They reveal new phones, bring us pics of said phones and make me geek out for hours on end! This is the second kind. This, ladies and gentlemen, is the Nexus 3.

This leak, courtesy of a brave soul in the Android Dev Labs, brings us an early look at a prototype of the HTC manufactured 3rd Nexus phone which we expect to launch with Ice Cream Sandwich late this year. Let’s see what we’ve got. First, as you can see above, there is a distinct lack of the usual hardware buttons. Ice Cream Sandwich is supposed to bring Honeycomb UI elements to phones, and it appears this includes the trading of hardware buttons for the action bar. While it is hidden by the thumb, there is also a front facing camera.

While this is obviously not a finished product, especially considering Ice Cream Sandwich is a ways off still, there are still a few more jewels to gleam here. First it was also noted that Google is testing both an HSPA+ and Sprint CDMA version of the phone, indicating we may see the phone’s initial launch be to multiple carriers. Also, since Google’s changed its mind over hero phones before, a la the Xperia Play, we only know that HTC is being considered.

As we draw closer to the end of the year, expect more details and a more solid idea of who will be building the next Nexus. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a phone to go drool over.

[via TechHog]

27 COMMENTS

  1. Sigh. Why cant android manufactuerers get together and make a true hero phone :S

    Super Amolid+ display.
    HTC body.
    Motorola Battery.

    Something worth actually drooling over. I hate seeing “google” phones made by a single manufacturer. Especially when its one that uses LCD screens. 

    • well actually i’ve compared my slcd nexus s to i9000 and my nexus s feels more accurate, so i don’t really need amoled (super or plus or plus II, watsoever). but why no one think of sony? you have to admit xperia arc is pretty sexy, and it has a nice display, nice build quality, and design, and their recent update brings facebook to arc is very impressive too.

      • You know the nexus S is made by Samsung and has a super amolid screen….The same thats in your Galaxy?

        You just compared the 2 same screens made by the same company…………..

      • The Nexus S comes in two variants, the slcd and the samoled. Mark probably got the slcd variant and is probably right on that type of display has much more warmer colors and non-overstaturated colors compared to the i9000.

      • The Nexus S comes in two variants, the slcd and the samoled. Mark probably got the slcd variant and is probably right on that type of display has much more warmer colors and non-overstaturated colors compared to the i9000.

  2. So if Icecream doesn’t use the back ,menu, search and home buttons and uses the action bar instead, how will Icecream work on the Nexus S and other phones? Or will they not get the upgrade?

    • I highly doubt they’ll be left behind. Just because it won’t require hardware buttons doesn’t mean it can’t utilize them. and Robert’s right XDA will pull all sorts of magic, they’ve had older versions of Android (that require hardware buttons) on devices that lack the buttons, like the Nook Color

  4. The more I see new phone leaks, the more I am convinced that the 1 ghz snapdragon phones was a golden era for android phones where manufacturers got it precisely right.  The HTC Evo and Nexus One are amazing phones.  Every phone released after them has some silly tradeoff like no memory card slot, no hardware buttons or not enough buttons, locked bootloader, or missing key generation features like NFC.   I’m just gonna be using my Nexus One forever 🙁 Not because I want to, because nothing else is as good.

    • I agree with the nexus one being one of the best, the screen size was perfect and is probably the best product from HTC aesthetically.

      • But even the Galaxy S2 only has 2 buttons.

        Honestly, I think Google has taken to quietly using their Nexus line to force developers to design software for their minimum feature set.  Instead of making them the best phones ever like the first one.  They want developers to write their software so it doesn’t depend on a memory card, so they take away the memory card on the Nexus S.  They want developers to write their interfaces without depending on hardware buttons so they took away the hardware buttons.  It means the Nexus line will always have some wacky constraint.

  5. Android has not entered or left its golden era, any more than saying the Sony VAIO blah blah blah was the golden era of windows.  Android continues to be the leading technology for mobile devices, and the proliferation of category bending devices that use it is the natural evolution of the mobile market.  And, I, dig the mobile market 🙂

    • I disagree.  I think when they introduced the Snapdragon processor combined with a rather large screen and high resolution it made a huge leap.  They really haven’t repeated it.

      Google has somehow bought the argument that people need a tablet and a phone, which is pushed by the carriers and device makers that don’t want to canabalize their marketshare by selling you one device when they can sell you two.  Particularly the US carriers that flat out disabled phone funcationality on US tablets at first.  That didn’t happen in Europe until google made it happen by not supporting the function with Honeycomb.

      All the development effort right now is occurring in the tablet space.  Google is focusing on it and phones are being positioned so that they don’t eat into tablet sales.  Which makes them very bland.  There are numerous features they added to tablets that haven’t been added to phones at all.  Why?

      Look at Motorola, they made very incremental upgrades to the phones they sell a lot of and focused all their energy on tablets that don’t move a lot of units and is really a niche market.  Did they really maximize their profit by doing so?  Maybe they would have been better off just making a really sweet phone?

      You are using a lot of buzz words in your comment.  I think you’re alluding to tablets by calling it the “mobile market”.  But for those of us not interested in a tablet.  Who cares.  Make us a nice phone.

    • I disagree.  I think when they introduced the Snapdragon processor combined with a rather large screen and high resolution it made a huge leap.  They really haven’t repeated it.

      Google has somehow bought the argument that people need a tablet and a phone, which is pushed by the carriers and device makers that don’t want to canabalize their marketshare by selling you one device when they can sell you two.  Particularly the US carriers that flat out disabled phone funcationality on US tablets at first.  That didn’t happen in Europe until google made it happen by not supporting the function with Honeycomb.

      All the development effort right now is occurring in the tablet space.  Google is focusing on it and phones are being positioned so that they don’t eat into tablet sales.  Which makes them very bland.  There are numerous features they added to tablets that haven’t been added to phones at all.  Why?

      Look at Motorola, they made very incremental upgrades to the phones they sell a lot of and focused all their energy on tablets that don’t move a lot of units and is really a niche market.  Did they really maximize their profit by doing so?  Maybe they would have been better off just making a really sweet phone?

      You are using a lot of buzz words in your comment.  I think you’re alluding to tablets by calling it the “mobile market”.  But for those of us not interested in a tablet.  Who cares.  Make us a nice phone.

    • I disagree.  I think when they introduced the Snapdragon processor combined with a rather large screen and high resolution it made a huge leap.  They really haven’t repeated it.

      Google has somehow bought the argument that people need a tablet and a phone, which is pushed by the carriers and device makers that don’t want to canabalize their marketshare by selling you one device when they can sell you two.  Particularly the US carriers that flat out disabled phone funcationality on US tablets at first.  That didn’t happen in Europe until google made it happen by not supporting the function with Honeycomb.

      All the development effort right now is occurring in the tablet space.  Google is focusing on it and phones are being positioned so that they don’t eat into tablet sales.  Which makes them very bland.  There are numerous features they added to tablets that haven’t been added to phones at all.  Why?

      Look at Motorola, they made very incremental upgrades to the phones they sell a lot of and focused all their energy on tablets that don’t move a lot of units and is really a niche market.  Did they really maximize their profit by doing so?  Maybe they would have been better off just making a really sweet phone?

      You are using a lot of buzz words in your comment.  I think you’re alluding to tablets by calling it the “mobile market”.  But for those of us not interested in a tablet.  Who cares.  Make us a nice phone.

  8. I really hope LG gets the next Nexus. Even though everybody hates LG right now, cause of the G2x issues, the phone is still dangerously fast. Imagine a pure Google, quad-core processing, Ice Cream Sandwich of a phone? Bottom line is, fuck HTC—LG, baby, all the way!

  9. So they are ditching LG doesn’t get the Nexus III?
    And they are not using Super Amoled?And that they are going back to poor screen, poor battery life, heavy brick from Taiwan?
    …disappointing..

  11. IMHO, Google should pull a Droid 2 Global with this phone.

    They can keep selling it unlocked, but Give it to sprint exclusively and then lock out ATT’s frequencies in the US, while adopting the international frequencies.

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