Well here is an early morning double header for everyone out there in Android land. Google has officially announced that Gingerbread is out, the SDK is now available. On top of that, the Nexus S support page has gone live which shows us all the hardware specs regarding Google’s second phone. Lets dive into the details shall we?
Nexus S Specs:
- Carrier: T-Mobile
- Android 2.3
- RAM 512MB
- Internal Storage 16GB (or as Google displays it, 16384MB)
- 4″ screen with 800×480 resolution (WVGA)
- 1GHz Cortex A8 (Hummingbird) processor
- Quad-band GSM: 850, 900, 1800, 1900 Tri-band HSPA: 900, 2100, 1700 HSPA type: HSDPA (7.2Mbps) HSUPA (5.76Mbps)
- WiFi and Bluetooth
- 5MP camera
- Contour Display, Near Field Communications (NFC), Three-axis gyroscope, Anti-fingerprint display coating, Internet Calling support (VoIP/SIP)
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T-Mobile scores the exclusive again with another Google phone only made by Samsung this time instead of HTC. Looking at the specs now, this seems like a good successor to the Nexus One. An Orion dual-core chip instead of the Hummingbird would have been nice and given it a serious boost over the competition.
Google also announced that Gingerbread is officially here. Developers can download the SDK and check out the new tools. Some new features include:
- Simplified debug builds: Developers can easily generate debug packages without having to manually configure the application’s manifest, making workflow more efficient.
- Integrated ProGuard support: ProGuard is now packaged with the SDK Tools. Developers can now obfuscate their code as an integrated part of a release build.
- HierarchyViewer improvements: The HierarchyViewer tool includes an updated UI and is now accessible directly from the ADT Plugin.
- Preview of new UI Builder: An early release of a new visual layout editor lets developers create layouts in ADT by dragging and dropping UI elements from contextual menus. It’s a work in progress and we intend to iterate quickly on it.
There has also been a new ADT Plug-in and a new NDK for developers with a lot more tools and bug fixes. Basically it is time to update all the tools you use! If you use Eclipse, you can do this easily through the update tool inside.
You can check out the full details (which we are doing as well right this second) about the new tools and features for Android 2.3 (Gingerbread) over at the Android Developer Website. Google was also nice enough to make a little announcement video, check it out below!
Update Dec. 6th 2010 9:13am: Just a quick update, the Nexus S will be available starting Dec. 16th for $529 unlock or $199 on a 2-year contract. I will say this though, for a flagship phone with the Nexus name on it, it still could have been a bit better.
Website Referenced: Engadget (Nexus S)
Developer Website: Android Developers Blog | Nexus S Support Page
