Next Google Experience Phone Coming From Samsung?

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It seems like “stock” Android phones are a dying breed. Sure, we had the original Motorola Droid and Nexus One, but after those, it seems like Android phones without any custom UIs are getting rarer and rarer (as hardware manufacturer draw at straws in an attempt differentiate themselves and not become an economic commodity provider). But, we may see another Google Experience (or “stock Android”) phone, and from Samsung of all people. The Korean giant who’s fond of their (awful) TouchWiz UI may be in cahoots to produce the next high-end Google phone.

This story comes from AndroidAndMe’s Tyler Wimberly, citing industry sources were spoke to him off the record. He says that the Samsung phone will have heavy Google influence and will have a OLED screen along with support for MasterCard’s new NFC PayPass system And it’ll be coming with Gingerbread. Nothing about carriers, yet.

Samsung has said publicly that they aren’t planning to offer any new Android phones this holiday season, and Mr. Wimberly has taken them to task for it, but he now has hinted that this phone could be coming to fill that Q4 hole.

A lack of TouchWiz would be almost shocking for Samsung. Their “TouchWiz” UI is based on their awful TouchWiz OS which predates their Android phones and is the OS of choice of their awful 2-inch touchscreen featurephones. We know that Google is attempting to improve the stock Android UI in an effort to end the need for custom UIs and to quicken update times/eliminate the dreaded (and imaginary) fragmentation problem.

Could we see a new Samsung Android phone with Android 3.0, running the stock UI with a beautiful OLED display? It sounds reasonable to us, but we’ll disagree with Wimberly. This sounds like a Q1/Q2 2011 phone to us, not anything we’d see by the end of the year. Throw in Verizon 4G LTE and we’ll be set.