[Updated] New Leaks Highlight Nexus Marlin Details & Carrier Availability

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In case you missed it, it is Nexus Season. You know, the time for good cheer, severe speculation, and of course our favorite – Nexus rumors.

Following a series of leaks recently, and most notably the Nexus Launcher, Nate Benis – Beanstown106 – of PureNexus fame has released a little bit of information on the larger, more premium Nexus phone codenamed “Marlin”.

Before we get into that though it is very important to remember that these are leaks, and as we all know things can change leading up to release. While we don’t know what Nate’s source is, it is easy to speculate off his leaks that either he or a trusted friend has a Marlin in hand, or more logically a system dump of the phone. So let’s dig in.

In the US at least – It would appear that Google will be following the route they did with the Nexus 6 and selling the Nexus line of phones through carrier stores. Nate’s information listed Verizon carrying the phone as as “Guaranteed”. Combined with support for Verizon’s visual voicemail and Wi-Fi Calling for Verizon and AT&T on top of the already supported T-Mobile and Sprint we get a clear picture. It is a strong indication that Google will be taking the Apple route and work with carriers again. Great for some, and not so great for others as carriers have interfered with timely updates in the past.

Updated – Shortly after the article went live last night new information from Nate Benis surfaced showing a text string pulled from the Marlin system.

<stringname=”oem_unlock_enable_disabled_summary_sim_locked_device”>Unavailable on carrier-locked devices</string>

This string indicates that the devices sold by carrier(s) will in some cases SIM locked to that carrier. While this could apply to devices sold through Google Fi, it is more likely that this is further indication that carriers will be selling the phones through their stores. This is typical of most carriers with the exception of Verizon which is required to sell their devices SIM unlocked. Being that this string does appear and only Verizon has been confirmed as carrying the phone it again is a strong indicator that T-Mobile and Sprint will also be carrying the devices.

Nate also dumped a host of information about the sensors and hardware. The phone features sensors such as an ambient temperature, relative humidity sensor and a compass. Further he also listed the Sony IMX179 for the front camera and the Sony IMX378 for the rear. The rear camera is tricky as Google searches do not show any clear references to it, however the HTC 10 used a Sony IMX377 and these sensors being very similar is likely. The Sony IMX179 is the already solid performing sensor found on the Nexus 6P and One Plus 3.

Nate also listed the MSM8996 as the processor which we know of as the 820. However, David Ruddock from Android Police states the Sailfish, which we reported on this morning, will feature the 821 and it is safe to assume the larger Marlin will do the same. It could just be a listing error, or Qualcomm could be marketing the two chips as close as they did the 800 and 801 which sometimes confused benchmark applications by their model numbers. Also of note is the 5.5″ 1440×2560 Samsung AMOLED screen, model number S6E3HA3, which appears to be the same model as the newly released ZTE Axon 7.

Finally on the software side, Nate mentioned that it will fully support Vulkan graphics and has a sound library for boom sound (from the Nexus 9). It will also ship with a host of new alarms, ringtones, UI sounds and a new boot animation, possibly the one leaked here.

Unfortunately, Google is taking more liberties with the software as Nate noted that these phones will ship with proprietary SystemUiGoogle.apk and SettingsGoogle.apk files. Tied to recent leaks from Android Police, it would appear that Google will be including its own form of on-device support through the system application and a new navigation bar that may not make it to other devices. While this could very well be the cause of these proprietary system level applications, it makes the jobs of themers and ROM makers that much more difficult.

So what do you think about these leaks? Sound off in our comments section below!

Source – Nate Benis G+