Samsung and Google announce Galaxy Nexus pentaband Ice Cream Sandwich smartphone

It's not much of a secret, but at least now it is official that Samsung will be releasing the Galaxy Nexus in November. CNET Asia has the details of this new phone where they are covering the announcement in Hong Kong. The Galaxy Nexus runs the latest version of the Android OS, Ice Cream Sandwich.

I have regularly ranted on this blog about the lack of pentaband 3G support that currently only Nokia provides in true world phone fashion with support for frequencies in the range. Thankfully, the new Galaxy Nexus is a pentaband phone, with support for the 21 Mbps HSPA+ data network so it is highly likely I will be picking one up to use with T-Mobile USA. Specifications of the Galaxy Nexus include:

• 4.65-inch 1280 x 720 Super AMOLED HD screen
• LTE support (likely coming to Verizon first as an exclusive)
• 1.2GHz dual-core processor
• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
• 5-megapixel rear-facing camera with LED flash
• 1.3-megpaixel front-facing camera
• 1080p HD video capture and playback
• 1GB of RAM
• 16GB or 32GB internal memory versions
• 1750mAh battery
• Bluetooth 3.0
• NFC support
• Barometer
• 8.94mm thick
• 135g (weight)

I just bought my Apple iPhone 4S on Verizon for the full unsubsidized price so I can't afford to buy the Galaxy Nexus to use with Verizon too and given the way CDMA networks function it is not as easy to swap between two high end devices.

The Nexus devices have always had the latest version of Android, but have lagged a bit in a specification or two, but that doesn't look to be the case with the Galaxy Nexus as it has the latest wireless radios, latest processor, and latest technologies such as NFC. Check out this comparison of the latest high end smartphones.