The Huawei-Nexus rumors have been circulating ever since the Mobile World Congress was held in March this year. There have been multiple reports stating that Huawei is in charge of making the next generation Nexus smartphone with a 5.7 inch QHD (2560 x 1440) display. A new report now goes a step further and claims that the Huawei Nexus phone will be based on the design of Huawei’s upcoming flagship phablet – the Ascend Mate 8, which is to be a replacement for the current generation Ascend Mate 7, and expected to be released in the coming months. The Mate 8 phablet is rumored to sport a huge 6 inch QHD display and is said to be powered by a Kirin 940 / 950 octa-core SoC developed in-house by Huawei.
There have been earlier reports claiming that both Huawei and LG are making Nexus devices this year. While neither Huawei nor LG has said anything on the matter officially, AndroidPit has claimed that sources from within LG have admitted to manufacturing a Nexus smartphone to be released later this year. Previous rumors have stated that the next generation Nexus device is slated to be powered by the Snapdragon 810 chipset from Qualcomm. If the current rumors circulating in the Chinese tech-media are true, then it might indicate two different Nexus phones this year with two different screen sizes – a comparatively smaller device made by LG and powered by the Snapdragon 810 and a large phablet made by Huawei and powered by the Kirin SoC.
There is also talk of a whole new operating system apparently being developed in-house by Huawei, called the Kirin OS. Sources from China claim that Huawei is working towards their own mobile operating system for three years, with an aim towards gaining independence from Google. While some sources seem to believe that it will be a whole new mobile operating system, it might actually very well be on the lines of the Cyanogen OS from Cyanogen Inc. or OxygenOS from OnePlus, both of which are among a number of Android-based systems doing the rounds, with enhanced features and UX. In this day and age when even a behemoth like Microsoft is finding it difficult to compete with Google’s Android and Apple’s iOS, it remains to be seen whether Huawei will spend valuable resources to try and push a whole new eco-system especially when even Samsung hasn’t gone anywhere with either Bada or Tizen in all these years of trying.