Samsung Galaxy Nexus rumored to launch on December 8

Had we a nickel every time someone projected a U.S. launch date for Samsung's much-anticipated Galaxy Nexus smartphone. We've all seen it. We've read about it. We've watched the phone's international release come and go. We've even posted our Galaxy Nexus review. So when's the big U.S. release, anyway?

Rumors have suggested everything from Black Friday, to Cyber Monday, to just about any November date under the sun for the launch of Samsung's first big Ice Cream Sandwich device (that's Android 4.0, the latest iteration of Google's mobile operating system). The Android website Droid Life is the latest gossiper to jump into the fray, only it's coming armed with evidence that suggests the Galaxy Nexus launch isn't arriving in November after all: Rather, December 8.

The source of the info is unknown, but the allegedly internal documents list a "Launch / End date" for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus as December 8. Although an accompanying description seems to indicate that the date could be reserved for a marking campaign for the device, instead of the smartphone's actual release date, Droid Life has corroborated its first leaked image with a second.

On this, the details are a bit more explicit: "The Samsung Nexus is now scheduled to launch in all locations on Thursday, 12/8," it reads. The description goes on to discuss Galaxy Nexus accessories that "have begun to ship to stores this week," which matches some of the rumormongering from last week that Galaxy Nexus accessories were beginning to pop up in Verizon stores and on Samsung's site.

In other words, the timing seems correct – now it just remains to be seen whether other third-party information can match up with the suggested December launch.

So what's the big deal about the Galaxy Nexus, anyway? First off, there's Ice Cream Sandwich, an OS upgrade that PCMag mobile analyst Sascha Segan describes as such: "Google has finally grown up. Ice Cream Sandwich is an elegant, futuristic-looking OS that borrows visual elements from both Gingerbread and Honeycomb." And, to paraphrase Segan, it's one of the biggest Android updates (14 pages of changes and counting!) that Google's made within the operating system's lifecycle.

And then there's the smartphone's hardware itself. A 1,280-by-720, 4.65-inch Super AMOLED Plus screen sits on top of the 0.35-inch thick smartphone. Tucked inside is a dual-core, 1.2-GHz processor and either 16 or 32 gigabytes of onboard storage. The Galaxy Nexus supports NFC (but not Google Wallet, a feature currently exclusive to Sprint's Nexus 4G), LTE or HSPA+ networks, and comes with two cameras built-in: a front-facing 1.3-megapixel camera and a rear-facing 5-megapixel camera.

For more on the Galaxy Nexus – to perhaps wet your whistle as you wait for its alleged December 8 launch – check out our review of the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich.

This article, written by David Murphy, originally appeared on PCMag.com and is republished on Gear Live with the permission of Ziff Davis, Inc.