History of Nexus

Google’s Nexus line up started as a way to help developers. The pure Android experience gave them better control and that pure experience pulled the end users too. The aggressive pricing, faster updates and lag-free UI made nexus line-up Android fan’s darling. In this post, I take you back in time to show those wonderful Nexus smartphones. This is the first article targeting Nexus lineup and I will share my experience with the Nexus 6P, how to optimize the new Nexus flagship and how to flash high performance and battery saving ROMs and Kernels.

Google’s entry into the smart phone market began with the Nexus One which was launched in January 2010. Manufactured by HTC, the first Nexus was powered by Snapdragon S1 with a single Scorpion core, had 512MB of RAM and 5mp camera, pushing content onto a 3.7″ display.

While the first Nexus phone gave the world a taste of ‘pure Android’, the next Nexus phone, designed by Samsung, made the world fall in love with Nexus brand. Thanks to their super hit lineup of Galaxy S phone, the second Nexus was called Nexus S and was launched in December 2010. Nexus S was also powered by a single core CPU running at 1GHz and had a 4″ Super AMOLED display. Google continued with Samsung and launched Galaxy Nexus in December 2011.

Fast forward a year Google partnered with LG releasing Nexus 4, the first global smash hit Nexus. This was when Google changed the pricing policy hence it became affordable, regularly sold out Nexus. Moving on with the trend, Google continued their partnership with LG launching their most hyped phone, the Nexus 5 and as expected, the Nexus 5 was a runaway hit. The Nexus 4 and Nexus 5 not only elevated Nexus brand to the next level, it cemented LG’s position in smartphone race as one of the top players.

Until then the Nexus line up was mainly criticized due to bad camera quality. Sometime in 2014 Google acquired Motorola and launched its first Nexus phablet, Nexus 6 in November 2014. The camera was light years ahead of the previous Nexus phones but it was not as popular as Nexus 5 due to price and size.

Looks like Google has finally listened to their Nexus customers and launched Nexus 5X, made by LG and Nexus 6P, made by Huawei.