The Nexus 6 release date, along with that of the Nexus 8 and Nexus 10 2, this 2014 appear to be a done deal as Google has reportedly awarded the coveted contracts to Lenovo-Motorola, Asus and HTC.

Lenovo is seen to secure the honour of making the Nexus 5 replacement on the strength of the Chinese PC maker's upcoming takeover of Motorola Mobility, rendering the latter a company under the complete control of the former.

However, as Google relinquishes its grip on Motorola the tech giant not only gets $3 billion as payment but also six per cent interest in Lenovo, Apple Insider said in a report.

With the Internet search giant poised to become part-owner of Lenovo, the prospect reinforces earlier speculations that after the Google-Lenovo deal, the next Nexus smartphone will carry the Lenovo-Motorola branding.

And the choice makes complete business sense for all parties concerned, analysts said.

The major benefit for Google is getting the assurance that a top-notch device maker is taking charge of the Nexus 6 production duties. Also, with Lenovo's established clout in China, the next Nexus is set to enjoy a wider market exposure unseen before, potentially reaching hundreds of millions of new buyers.

As for Lenovo, its acquisition of Motorola and increasing partnership with Google will surely pad up the company's prestige portfolio.

Meanwhile, the Nexus 8 rumours seem to be heading to reality as Taiwanese publication DigiTimes reported last week that Asus will continue making the compact Nexus tablet. However, the 2014 model will ditch the 7-inch profile and in its place, Google will intro an 8-inch slate that is powered by vanilla Android.

To hit the market this late April, the Nexus 8 is geared to slug it out with Apple's iPad Mini line up, which continues to dominate small tablet market segment, said the same DigiTimes report.

The shift from Nexus 7 to Nexus 8 is Google's way of beefing up its efforts to disturb iPad's seemingly unchallenged domination of the mobile computing market.

And to complete its 2014 Nexus tablet thrust, the company is believed to finally release the long-delayed Nexus 10 2 tab. But the upcoming build will not be from South Korea as Taiwan's HTC will reportedly bump off Samsung from the Nexus realm.

According to CNET, the HTC One maker is lined up to produce a high-end Nexus tablet that will debut in the third quarter of 2014. As the small Nexus tablet is already in Asus' hands, HTC is believed to work magic on the second Nexus 10.

HTC is no stranger to the Nexus world as the company previously issued the Nexus One mobile phone.

As mentioned, the first release date to wait for is that of the Nexus 8, touching down in the last week of April 2014, with the Nexus 6 and Nexus 10 2 following shortly between May and September of the same year.