This is precisely what I was talking about in my other thread, "The Nexus S Story". Here's what I wrote regarding the dual-core/single-core thing:
I hope more light is shed regarding the Nexus S story. Some things don't add up to me.
Google's Eric Schmidt said during the Summer that there would be no Nexus Two, saying that the Nexus One accomplished what they set out to do. Some have construed this to mean other things, and even Eric himself has said what he really meant was that he didn't want to use the name "Nexus 2" or something to that effect. Is this true? I'm not sure. Or did Google see the success of Samsung's Galaxy S line to all four major carriers (and others), which was something Google was hoping to accomplish with the Nexus One, and see the quality of Samsung's SAMOLED and felt it would optimize 2.3's darker color format well, and so decided to reach out to them to have them revise their Galaxy S line to a Nexus brand? Or did Google reach out to them before they released the Galaxy line to make the next Nexus, and if so, why would Eric make such comment implying there would be no future Nexus phones? It could, of course, be simple misdirection.
Considering the Nexus S is not being developed from the ground up, and is more or less based on the Galaxy S line, research, development, and manufacturing time could have been accomplished between the late Summer/early Fall release of Galaxy phones to now December, for the Nexus S launch. Considering Samsung doesn't seem to have any real history of "shortages," their manufacturing plants could be up for the challenge?
Then, you have the supposed "delay" of the Nexus S. It turns out the Best Buy leaked specs were real (the official specs is almost exactly what the BB specs said it would be - 1 GHz single core, no HSPA+ support...). So what was the delay? Well, just last week the FFC received radio changes to the i9020 model (aka the Nexus S number). Was that the slight hardward delay/tweak? And not what Androidandme thought was the scrapping of single-core to have dual-core? But they also said dual-core Nexus S prototypes were out in the wild in testing. Did the tests not go well with Gingerbread, which has been reported to not be optimized yet for dual-cores, and thus Google deciding to stick to the single-core for final production? Or were those supposedly dual-core Nexus S prototypes really prototypes of Samsung's i9200 phones, aka Galaxy S2?
I don't know. This is all speculation and musing. The Nexus S story doesn't add up. Given some baffling decisions regarding the official specs - namely lack of HSPA+ (or "4G") support - I suspect Google rushed this when they saw the success of Galaxy S and Samsung's SAMOLED technology, and tried, but couldn't get dual-cores to work properly and in time to meet their December release deadline (Gingerbread had to be released before Christmas).
Is a dual-core, HSPA+ capable Nexus S floating around out there in prototype/testing form to be released in 2011? Does the Nexus S story add up to you guys?