Does the LG Optimus 2X steal the thunder from the Google Nexus S

Google unveiled its Nexus S smartphone earlier this month. Featuring a 4-inch Super AMOLED curved display, a 1GHz ARM Cortex A8 processor backed up by a discrete Graphics Processing Unit, 16GB of internal storage,a front facing video camera for video calling, and a LED flash and featuring Near Fields Communications. The Nexus S biggest claim to fame was that it was the first phone to run Android 2.3 (Gingerbread), the Google Nexus S was a bit of a disappointment to many. It was basically a updated Samsung i9000 Galaxy S, sans the MicroSD card slot and 720p video recording. In that sense, the Nexus S is not necessarily a better phone the the Galaxy S.

When I first read about the LG Optimus 2X, I though it was still a few months away. GSMArena reports that it will be coming out in Europe before the end of January 2011. This is the first smartphone with a dual core processor, running ARM Cortex A9 1GHz processor, instead of the the single core processor on the Nexus S. The Optimus 2X on board storage is less than the Nexus S, at 8GB, but the Optimus 2X does have an MicroSD card slot so it is expandable to up to 40GB. The Optimus 2X has an 8MP camera versus the 5MP camera on the Nexus S, and Optimus 2X does HD video recording. We are not talking about 720p video recording, but full 1080p video recording. 

While the dimension of the LG Optimus 2X has not been confirmed, from pictures it looks like it will be one of the slimmest smartphones.

Some points for the Nexus S. The LG Optimus 2X does not feature Near Fields Communications and will run Android 2.2 (Froyo), but LG will update it to Android 2.3 shortly. And the Nexus S does sell for a lower price. Best to wait for a full review, as a specifications sheet will never show you the whole picture, but I wonder if Google should instead have launched a Google Nexus O.

LG is doing really well on the Android front, with its best in class LG Optimus One and now with its upcoming top of the class LG Optimus 2X.