In less than three weeks, Google’s current Nexus phone, the Galaxy Nexus, is going to turn one year old. That means we’re due for an upgrade. Back in May, The Wall Street Journal said that we’re going to see multiple Nexus smartphones launched during the holiday shopping season, but that rumor is now being challenged. According to Android and Me, Google is going to announce just one new Nexus phone this month. And the next version of Android, allegedly called Key Lime Pie, isn’t going to be version 5.0, but instead 4.2. Their server logs already show several hits from a device running Android 4.2, and while it’s easy enough to fake Android version numbers, we don’t think someone would go through all that trouble just to punk the Android community.

What do we know about this next Nexus? The three sources who spoke to Android and Me say the phone has already leaked. That could mean the Galaxy Nexus II, but it could also mean the LG Optimus G.

What do we at Android Authority think about all this? Our gut says that the next Nexus will be a minor update to the Galaxy Nexus. The next “major” version of Android will likely be shown off early next year because that’s when we can expect to see next generation hardware. By “next generation” we mean new chips that use ARM’s Cortex A15 processor such as the Texas Instruments OMAP 5. Qualcomm’s quad core Snapdragon S4 is going to start shipping in phones this month, but not in any meaningful quantities. It’s going to take a while for production to ramp up, so it makes sense for Google to host a major event in 2013 instead of this year.

Remember the first Nexus, the Nexus One? It was announced in early January. We could see a repeat of that sort of timing, and maybe that’s when Google will unveil this so called “portfolio” of Nexus smartphones.