The rumor mill is spinning at light-speed today and the things we're getting are quite exciting, to say the least. And finally, we're not talking about the company from Cupertino and its Internet tablet, but about something rather different, namely what can either be the next model in Google's Nexus family of Android smartphones or... just a clever rendering.

The source of this new rumor is a Chinese website, Mobile01, which posted some photos (obvious renderings) allegedly pertaining to an Android smartphone from Motorola called the “Shadow.” As you can see for yourselves from this photo, the overall design is reminiscent of both the Droid and the Droid Eris, albeit there are clearly some differences as well.

The “Shadow” depicted in the photo sports a slide-out QWERTY keyboard, a large-size touch-screen display (although estimating the real size of the screen is not exactly a very easy task), as well as a lanyard loop on the side. OK, you might say, this might be some leaked photo of the next Motorola model, but what's the connection with Google?

Well, this is where things tend to get interesting. So, as Slashgear informs us, at the Google Nexus One launch event, Motorola's CEO (who, for some reason, attended the event), talked about the importance of the Android OS and of “flagship devices” that would promote it (much as the Droid). This led many people to believe that Motorola might have been pitching its own design for a future Nexus product, and that might be the case, all things considered.

Now, it remains to be seen what the truth is about this mysterious “Shadow” handset, but we hope it will turn out to be a real-life product, because the renderings look mighty fine to us.


We are just a few, but there are many of you, Softpedia users, out there. That's why we thought it would be a good idea to create an email address for you to help us a little in finding gadgets we missed. Interesting links are bound to be posted with recognition going mainly to those who submit. The address is .