LG Optimus G Nexus To Arrive In November With Android 4.2 On Board

New sources seem to confirm the news we’ve brought you a couple of days ago: LG will manufacture the next Google Nexus based on the company’s flagship smartphone, Optimus G.

The guys at Android and Me are saying, quoting sources inside the Android ecosystem, that the next-generation Google Nexus dev phone will be developed on LG Optimus G’s paltform. It seems that Google is preparing to launch Android 4.2 in November, during a conference co-hosted by LG, where the new LG Optimus G Nexus smartphone will be officially announced. We don’t know yet whether the Android 4.2 will be nicknamed Key Lime Pie or if Google will keep the Jelly Bean name.
Apparently any smartphone manufacturer can be part of the Nexus program, but it will have to fulfill some strict requirements set by Google. In order to qualify for producing a Nexus smartphone, the phone maker must use stock Android, known as “Vanilla” and 64 MB of secure memory for media streaming. Still the user interface personalization will be allowed via the new “Customization Center.” Of course, there are also hardware requirements, meant to make the Nexus devices compatible with the Android version they introduce.
It would be somehow odd to see LG Optimus G becoming the new Nexus, since the South Korea-based company already unveiled all its technical specifications. But this doesn’t mean it’s a less attractive model, since it comes with high-end specs, including a quad-core Snapdragon S4 Pro processor (reputed to be the most powerful on the market yet), 2 GB of RAM and 13 megapixel camera.


As about the name of the new Android version, the rumors are quite contradictory. Some say that Android 4.2 will keep the Jelly Bean name, as it would be just a minor update. Others say that Key Lime Pie is the nickname of Android 4.2. My opinion is that Google will keep the Key Lime Pie indicative for Android 5.0.
It seems that with the introduction of Android 4.2, Google aims to lay the foundation for the major update brought by Android 5.0. Android 4.2 Jelly Bean will reportedly bring better resource management and increased battery, a new Google Play Store version and some new features integrated in the Nexus program. The user interface will definitely be the one we’ve seen at the previous version, except that the Home menus will be displayed as tabs, which is a bizarre decision, if you’d ask me.
It will be a very interesting fall, especially if the rumors about the existence of iPad Mini are confirmed.