There's now even more reason to believe that HTC is busy building both Google Nexus phones for 2016, as today we're seeing new alleged codenames and benchmarks for the devices.
Internally, the HTC Nexus phones are dubbed M1 and S1, according to prolific phone leaker Evan Blass, and this leak is corroborated by previous codename mentions of "Marlin" and "Sailfish." Makes sense.
You may have heard the new Nexus phones go by other codenames in the past like T55 and T50. But these older monikers likely allude to their respective 5.5-inch and 5.0-inch screen sizes.
Yes, it's being strongly suggested that HTC's new Nexus phones are pairing down on the dimensions of the 5.7-inch Nexus 6P and 5.2-inch Nexus 5X. We're a long way from Motorola's massive Nexus 6.
Now for those new Nexus benchmarks
Aside from all of the name calling, we may have our first hints at new Nexus specs thanks to a mysterious Geekbench benchmark spotted earlier this month.
The benchmark results proclaim the phone title as "google Nexus 6P," yet the specs and scores listed are dramatically different from the Nexus 6P 2015.
It has the newer Qualcomm 820 processor (the current 6P has the 810 chip) and 4GB of RAM (6P only has 3GB). Perhaps most telling is that the phone is already running Android N and the motherboard is listed as "marlin." That's almost making it too easy.
HTC is overdue for a Nexus phone
This wouldn't be HTC's first Google Nexus device. The company created the first Android device ever, the HTC Dream, and was also responsible for the Nexus One.
The company also made the Nexus 9 tablet in 2014, though it turned out to be a sales flop. HTC has been struggling as of late, and these two Nexus devices could be a Google-assisted shot at redemption.
HTC's current flagship phone, the HTC 10, is once again a competitive handset, but it still has catching up to do to rival the Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge. Well, it looks like HTC has two more shots to top our best phones list in 2016.
- See the iPhone 7 'Pro' sketch that has two iSight cameras, no headphone jack
