Google Nexus, the next flagship smartphone for Android drops next month. The Samsung device will also serve as the debut for Ice Cream Sandwich, or Android 4.0.

The updated operating system from Google features a refined user experience that mirrors many of the enhancements Google brought to its Honeycomb build for tablets. Ice Cream Sandwich also delivers improved multi-tasking, notifications, NFC support and a new People app that organizes your contacts and the photos and other content you share with them.

“With Ice Cream Sandwich, our mission was to build a mobile OS that works on both phones and tablets, and to make the power of Android enticing and intuitive. We created a new font that’s optimized for HD displays and eliminated all hardware buttons in favor of adaptable software buttons. We also dramatically improved the keyboard, made notifications more interactive and created resizable widgets,” wrote Andy Rubin, SVP of mobile at Google.

Samsung’s Galaxy Nexus sports a 4.65-inch contour HD Super AMOLED display, a 1.2 GHz dual core processor, 1 GB of RAM, HSPA+ and LTE connectivity (where available) and a 5-megapixel camera.

The SDK for Android 4.0 is available today as an open source release and the Galaxy Nexus begins shipping next month in the United States, Canada, Europe and Asia.