Google plans to offer a premium Android experience with Silver line of products, starting with the US and will be replaced with a range of premium smartphones and tablets, Report, The Information. Android Silver products will also get prompt software updates and will have top-end features like advanced voice recognition and water resistance.

LG and Motorola have been signed up as hardware partners for Android Silver, but there’s no word on involvement of Samsung, HTC and Sony.

The Verge, which accessed the report, says, "The change is both expansive and expensive, as Google is said to be planning to spend heavily on promoting these devices in wireless carriers' stores and through advertising, essentially subsidizing the development and marketing costs for its hardware partners."

In the US, both Nexus and Google Play Edition devices are available only via the company's online store; Google Play Edition devices are not sold outside the US.

Earlier, it was reported that Google was disappointed over the introduction of some of the new UI features in Samsung's TouchWiz and had asked the South Korean firm to scale back the customizations.

                        

The move is seen as an effort to balance the Android market, which is now heavily skewed in Samsung's favour. Google has made several other moves in the recent past to combat Android fragmentation and rein in the drastic changes Samsung, Sony, HTC and others have made to their Android devices.

Another rumoured component of the Android Silver programme is a dedicated channel for anytime-anywhere customer support, possibly in the form of a Google+ Hangout. Customers would be able to get help directly from a trained Google staffer familiar with the device in question.

Google plans to roll-out such devices to it developed markets first and then later introduce the same to emerging markets. But when it will be rolled out in market like India, it is not yet clear.