Mockup render portrays the two upcoming HTC Nexus smartphones

By now it's pretty clear that this year HTC has been tasked to produce not one, but two Nexus smartphones for Google. Not long ago, specs have already been leaked for both the smaller one, codenamed Sailfish, and the bigger model codenamed Marlin. And now it's time to get an idea about their looks.

What you see below is a mockup image (so not an actual leaked press render) that has been created to convey to us the design of both the Marlin and the Sailfish. The two are said to be so similar in terms of looks that only one mockup image is sufficient to give us an idea of what both are going to end up looking like.

The only differences between their designs are said to have to do directly with the size differential, since the Sailfish will have a 5-inch display, while the Marlin will go with a 5.5" panel. Both are said to be made out of aluminum, save for that glossy plastic or glass portion you can see on the back. This might be used to hide the NFC transmitter and perhaps some other radios too. That said, we still get some antenna bands.

There will be another color version with a white front and silver back, and we might even see a model with white front and glossy 'electric blue' rear just to spice things up. That "G" logo isn't set in stone yet, so it may not be there when the phones launch, but apparently you shouldn't expect to see the HTC logo anywhere. The Home button may in fact be more colorful, as portrayed by a recent rumor regarding Google's redesign of the Android buttons.

Those three holes you can see next to the thankfully non-protruding camera are rumored to house a laser autofocus mechanism and perhaps a secondary microphone, but this is all speculation at the moment since the source of the information about the design of the 2016 Nexus devices has stayed mum on this matter.

This time around, both Nexus handsets will be almost identical in specs. The smaller Sailfish phone will sport a 5-inch 1080p touchscreen, the Snapdragon 820 or 821/823 SoC at the helm, 4GB of RAM, 32 or 128GB of storage, a 12 MP rear camera, an 8 MP selfie shooter, a USB Type-C port, a fingerprint scanner on the back, bottom-firing speakers, all the usual connectivity options including Bluetooth 4.2, and a 2,770 mAh battery.

The Marlin will instead have a 5.5-inch QHD display, and a 3,450 mAh battery. Everything else pretty much stays the same as for the Sailfish, and both should arrive with Android 7.0 Nougat on board.

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