Rumors have been making the rounds that at least one of Google’s next-gen Nexus devices could be built by HTC. Now expert leaker Evan Blass says that “HTC is building a pair of Android N devices for Google” which are code-named M1 and S1.
Website Android Police quickly followed up with a few more details, and WinFuture.de blogger Roland Quandt spotted some benchmark results that tell us a little more.
So if all of these leaks are accurate, here’s what we know:
- HTC is developing two devices for Google, which could be upcoming Nexus phones, tablets, or other products.
- They’re codenamed Marlin (M1) and Sailfish (S1), sticking with the aquatic theme Google tends to use for Nexus projects.
- The Marlin may be a next-gen Nexus 6P with 4GB of RAM and a quad-core Qualcomm processor (I’d guess the Snapdragon 820).
Since it’s likely that both devices will ship with Android N, they probably won’t be released until after Google publicly launches the next version of its mobile operating system.
HTC is the company that manufactured the Google Nexus One smartphone, which was the first Nexus device. The company also produced the 2014 Nexus 9 tablet for Google.
The recently released HTC 10 smartphone has been getting pretty strong reviews, but it’s unclear what, if any features, the M1 or S1 devices would borrow from that phone.