There is a rumour going around from Eldar Murtazin that the Nexus line could be shut down for good by 2015. The Russian blogger has been on Twitter and said that Google will scrap the Nexus line up and instead replace it with the Google Play Editions. Fans believe this to be nothing more than an outlandish rumour, however there are actually some signs that do suggest there could be some truth to the rumour. We still haven’t seen a refresh of the Google Nexus 10, while Play Editions have been expanding. These grew from the Samsung Galaxy S4 along with the HTC One Play Editions and now there is the LG Pad 8.3, the Moto G and Sony Z Ultra.
While the rumours that Google may kill off the Nexus are disturbing to fans of the Nexus, Murtazin is known to be a prolific leaker, in the same league as @evleaks. He has also gotten things wrong in the past and of course none of the information given out has anything to back it up. But Google may be leaning towards that direction as Phandroid did say that Nexus handsets have been popular as they are inexpensive and provide developers with a capable option. Consumers love the Nexus for having fast updates along with pure Android and there is no bloatware on the handsets. The Google Play Edition handsets usually get updates long after the Nexus does and they come with a higher price tag. People can pay more than $600 to get their hands on the unlocked versions of the Samsung Galaxy S4, the HTC One and Sony Xperia Z. At the moment the Nexus 10 is not is stock and the most expensive of the Nexus devices over at the Google Play Store is the Nexus 5 32GB which comes in at $399, which is below the HTC One Google Play Edition which comes in at $599. The Samsung Galaxy S4 GPE will cost you $649 and this applies to the Sony Z Ultra GPE. The 8GB Moto G is the cheapest option as the 8GB comes in at just $179.
With this in mind if Google do decide to kill off the Nexus, the GPE handsets will not be as big a hit as the Nexus. Phandroid did say that Google might not want to be seen as favouring one over the other so they may not go down this road.
Google may not kill off Nexus by 2015 but Google and Samsung have just signed a deal so you can expect to see many more Samsung Google Play Editions come to the Play Store.
