Nexus 4 smartphone details outed by U.K. retailer

IDG News Service - Google's next smartphone, the Nexus 4, will have a 4.7-inch screen and start shipping on Oct. 30, according to U.K. retailer Carphone Warehouse.

The follow-up to the Galaxy Nexus, which was announced in October last year, is widely expected to be unveiled at an event in New York on Oct. 29.

While the Galaxy Nexus was manufactured by Samsung Electronics, Google has this time chosen to work with LG Electronics.

The black Nexus 4 has a Gorilla Glass 2-protected 4.7-inch display with 1280-by-768 pixel resolution, and a 1.5GHz quad-core processor from Qualcomm.

That compares to the Galaxy Nexus which has a 1.2 GHZ dual core processor and a 4.65-inch display with 1280-by-720 pixel resolution. The two phones are almost identical in design.

The Nexus 4 will run either version 4.1.2 or 4.2 (both are listed) of the Android operating system and it will be 9.1 millimeters thick, according to Carphone Warehouse's specification.

The posted specification also includes NFC, an 8-megapixel camera and 8GB of integrated storage. The latter is much less than what competing products have. For example, HTC recently announced the One X+, which has up to 64GB of onboard storage.

Besides a new smartphone, Google is also rumored to be upgrading and expanding its line of Nexus tablets, including a new model with a 10-inch screen, on Oct 29.

The timing of the official announcement is hardly a coincidence. Microsoft will also debut Windows Phone 8 on the same day, and smartphones based on the operating system will start shipping in November.

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