Is this a screenshot of the Nexus Prime?
Just hours before Apple is set to unveil the iPhone 4S/5, GSM Arena has gotten their hands on what very well might be the first live shot of the upcoming Nexus Prime. The Nexus Prime is rumored to be unveiled one week from today at Samsung Mobile’s Unpacked event at the 2011 CTIA conference.
The image confirms that the Nexus Prime will indeed launch with an HD screen. The Nexus Prime will feature a 4.6″ 720p display, with a screen resolution of 1280 x 720.
Perhaps more importantly, the leak gives us a first glimpse into what an Android device will look like without the physical or capacitive buttons we’ve come to expect with Android devices. Instead, Google has built soft buttons into the Ice Cream Sandwich version of Android (either 2.4 or 4.0) similar to what we’ve seen with tablets running Android 3.0 Honeycomb.
The soft buttons will be one of the bigger differentiating factors that set the Nexus Prime apart from previous Android devices. Though an argument could be made that the on-screen buttons takes up precious screen real estate, we believe that manufacturers will increase the screen size of their devices to offset the screen taken up by the soft buttons.
As someone who has used multiple Honeycomb tablets, I personally am looking forward to the use of soft buttons instead of the more traditional physical/capacitive buttons. Judging based on the image below, Google has made sure that the soft buttons flow well with the rest of the operating system.
What do you guys think? Do you embrace the move toward soft buttons that are built into the OS, or do you prefer the more traditional capacitive/physical buttons? What do you think of the Aluminum bezel?
Via: Android and Me
