Could the next Google Nexus device be a 2015 refresh of the Nexus 5? After Google displayed a modified Nexus 5 during Google I/O 2015, signs are pointing to a second-generation Google Nexus 5 to be released later in 2015 with Android M. Rumor has it the Nexus 5 2nd generation could be made either by LG or through a new partnership with Huawei.

Google probably didn't know the Nexus fan base would crank the rumor mill up to high gear when it posted this clip to the Google Developers channel on YouTube:


For all intents and purposes, it's a (quite handsy) demonstration of the new Google M developer preview's fingerprint API for Android Pay.

But is it? For Nexus fanatics, it was much more. At about three minutes in, Google's Maya Ben Ari whips out an unidentified "phone" that "has been modified to add a fingerprint sensor."

Keen-eyed redditors pegged the device as a Nexus 5, based on its camera sensor placement (via BGR). But is it just a modified Nexus 5 from 2013 or something else entirely?

It could be either, though at first blush I bet it was an old Nexus 5, since I'd take Ben Ari's word for it that it's been "modified" -- not redesigned. Just think: if Google had put a fingerprint sensor on the Nexus 6, she probably would have been using that instead.

But wait, there's more!

Even keener-eyed redditors in the thread noted that the device in the video, matching one at Google I/O, had a USB Type-C port! Affording a big grain of salt with this report, the logic of it is enticing:

If you're Google, and you just want to modify an old phone to demonstrate fingerprint scanning, there's no reason to put a USB Type-C jack in it.

However, if you've already got working prototypes of the next Nexus device, which will include a fingerprint scanner, then you put those into circulation for the demos and tell your staff not to mention exactly what that phone is.

This is around the time when details of the next Nexus device start slipping out, and as Google's last Nexus was an expensive phablet that doesn't fit the needs of a large swath of people, it would make strategic sense to refresh and redesign the much more handle-able (literally and price-wise) LG Nexus 5 of yore to challenge the next iPhone when it's released.

The rumor mill is already pointing towards LG to update the Nexus 5 for 2015, and some are thinking Huawei will make a phablet Nexus based on previous rumors about the "Nexus Angler."

It's all very exciting, but as with every year of Nexus, expect a lot of speculation and not much official information released (whether intentional, unintentional, or intentionally-unintentional) from Google, at least until long after the summer of Nexus rumors has passed; Google traditionally puts release dates for its Nexus line around late-October or early-November.