Back in the day, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus was one of the more popular Android-powered devices. This was however back when the world hasn’t heard of smartphones such as the HTC One X or the venerable Samsung Galaxy S III. The GNex as it was fondly called got this popularity because during that time, it was the only handset to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich for its operating system, which incidentally was the latest iteration of the Google mobile operating system back then. In fact, we remember the Samsung Galaxy Nexus as the handset that Google released to showcase ICS to the whole world.
However, with talks of Google about to release its latest Nexus flagship smartphone in a couple of days’ time, word on the street is that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is about to get shown the door and told to head for retirement. This is not surprising at all because rumors are flying everywhere that Google is set to unveil the LG Nexus 4. In fact, there have been confirmations from all over that the LG Nexus 4 will indeed be the next Google flagship and the only thing missing in the equation is the official announcement from Google itself.
Though this may be the case, I don’t feel sorry for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus heading off to retirement. The handset has lived a full life in the smartphone competition and will in fact ride off to the sunset with another feather in its cap – the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is already running Android 4.1 Jelly Bean which happens to be the latest version of the Android operating system.
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And with its successor about to reach official status in a couple of days’ time, it is only expected that the price point of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus will also go down. In fact, Verizon already gave the green light to its authorized resellers to give the handset a huge price cut so for those still interested in getting one of these bad boys, you can now do so at a much cheaper price point. However, you will still be required to sign a new two-year service agreement with the wireless provider if you want to take advantage of the handset at its current cheaper than cheap price.
This is not to say though that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is already pretty useless. In fact, the components of Samsung Galaxy Nexus under the hood are still impressive as ever with its operation being powered by the handset’s Texas Instruments OMAP4460 chipset. This SoC brings to the device a dual-core 1.2 GHz ARM Cortex-A9 processor and a full gigabyte of RAM while its onboard storage comes up to 32GB. In terms of its display, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus packs a 4.65-inch SuperAMOLED Countour Display with a 1280 x 720 resolution while its shooting department, easily the source of most criticisms for the handset, features a rear 5MP shooter and a front 1.3MP snapper.
