HTC rumoured to be making Nexus 5, a 5-inch phablet

The website further reports that next Nexus phone might be dubbed as Nexus 5, which seems apt given the display size of 5-inch on-board.

There is no way to confirm the authenticity of this report, but given the last two Nexus smartphones were made by Samsung, Google would like to choose a different manufacturer for this year's Nexus release.

Expected to run on a newer Jelly Bean release, HTC Nexus 5 will feature 1080p display, along with Qualcomm's S4 Pro quad-core processor.

According to previous rumours, the smartphone will come with 12MP rear camera, 2MP front camera, and 2500 mAh battery.

Multiple Nexus phones
A previous report from Wall Street Journal had revealed Google is planning a major tactical change and will partner with multiple manufacturers to build several Nexus smartphones. A follow up leak from a Japanese telecom operator NTT Docomo document also painted a similar picture.

A HTC Nexus as a part of multiple Nexus smartphones seems very plausible, but we don't really think that Google will be releasing multiple Nexus smartphones.

Nexus smartphones have typically been reference devices and there is no point in having multiple reference devices for a single version of Android, which is not even a major release.

Nexus smartphone launch
Google had announced the current Nexus - Galaxy Nexus - last year on October 19 that too after a delay following the demise of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, so we expect it to release the next Nexus in October this year as well.

An October announcement gives it enough time to take it to the market in time for holiday shopping.