Debuting tonight: Galaxy Nexus running Ice Cream Sandwich

Computerworld - The hottest new Android smartphone contender to the wildly successful iPhone 4S will be launched by Samsung and Google in Hong Kong within 12 hours, insiders say.

Called the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the smartphone would be the first to run Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich, the mobile operating system that unifies tablet and smartphone software.

NTT DoCoMo recently tweeted that it will have the Galaxy Nexus for its customers in Japan sometime in November, according to BGR.com.

Sources have also said that Verizon Wireless will be the smartphone's exclusive U.S. carrier and will put the device on sale sometime this month, although Verizon would not comment when asked today. The phone is expected to run on the fast Verizon LTE network.

Many specs of the coming Galaxy Nexus smartphone have been leaked based on information from informed sources, and BGR recently described it as having a 4.65-in. touch screen, making it among the largest, with a 1280 x 720-pixel Super Amoled HD display. (The iPhone 4S has a 3.5-in. Retina display touch screen, with 960 x 640-pixel resolution, which Apple notes is at 326 pixels per inch.)

Other details include a 1.2 GHz dual-core Cortex A9 processor, 1GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, support for near-field communications and a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera.

The presentation will be held at 10 p.m. ET tonight, or 10 a.m. Hong Kong time on Wednesday. Google has also set up a live stream.

Matt Hamblen covers mobile and wireless, smartphones and other handhelds, and wireless networking for Computerworld. Follow Matt on Twitter at @matthamblen or subscribe to Matt's RSS feed. His e-mail address is mhamblen@computerworld.com.

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