HTC’s 2016 flagship smartphone is expected to be unveiled during Mobile World Congress towards the end of February, but a new rumor gives us something quite important to look forward to during the second half of the year. Google has apparently chosen HTC to build a 5-inch and 5.5-inch Nexus smartphone. Besides the size of the two phones, no other details are known at this time.
HTC build the Nexus 9 Android tablet in 2014, but the company hasn’t built a Nexus smartphone since the original Nexus One which was introduced during CES 2010. While Nexus phones have never been extremely popular, the companies that build Nexus phones have typically seen increased interested in their other Android devices. When HTC built the Nexus One, it was the dominating Android manufacturer for the next two years. The same happened to Samsung after it was chosen to build Nexus phones two years in a row. Even LG saw significant smartphone growth after it built the Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 for Google a few years back.
There’s no guarantee that HTC will regain the market share that it has lost over the past four years, but building a few Nexus phones certainly can’t hurt. Google typically releases its Nexus phones during the third quarter, giving us at least another 8 months before the two HTC-build Nexus phones are announced. We might hear a more vague rumors over the next few months, but don’t expect any important details to surface until summer.
UPDATE: @LlabTooFeR chimed in on the HTC Nexus rumor by charing the code names for the two phones: T50 and T55.
Allegedly related to HTC Nexus devices codenames are:
T50
T55— LlabTooFeR (@LlabTooFeR) January 19, 2016
Source: Weibo via GadgetzArena
Hmm how come we haven’t Heard anything about the One M10 yet..? It’s only about 1 month away for MWC
Maybe cause they don’t want the same expectations that people had from the supposedly leaked M9 pics that caused people to be disappointed.
What he said. That was a disaster last year. Let’s see if some executive doesn’t screw up and it ends on YouTube from another one of their kids.