Verizon's Galaxy Nexus price: $199.99?
A holiday ad puts the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone at a penny shy of $200 from Verizon. That could be a promotional price, though.
- Shankland covered the tech industry for more than 25 years and was a science writer for five years before that. He has deep expertise in microprocessors, digital photography, computer hardware and software, internet standards, web technology, and more.
A holiday-themed Flash ad makes it appear that Samsung's Galaxy Nexus, the phone that's carrying Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" to market, will cost $199.99 through Verizon.
The phone has gone on sale in the United Kingdom, but has yet to appear in the United States. The phone has a large 4.65-inch touch screen, a dual-core 1.2GHz processor, a 1080p videocamera and 720p screen, and 4G LTE speeds on Verizon's wireless network, but its most notable feature is the next-gen operating system from Google.
Android Police spotted the ad, noting that it points to a Verizon special offers page. That could mean that the Galaxy Nexus might not always have a $200 price tag; the same ad promotes the $149.99 Stratosphere for a price of $99.99 and the $199.99 Droid Charge for a price of $99.99.
Needless to say, those prices require a two-year contract whose monthly fees ultimately will dwarf the original purchase price.
Verizon will begin selling the Galaxy Nexus later in 2011, Samsung has said.
The Galaxy Nexus can be had for anywhere from free to 169 pounds ($) from the initial U.K. sales partner, Phones4U, with varying two-year contracs. Outside the U.S., though, the phone supports only 3G networking and has 16GB of flash memory, compared to LTE and 32GB in the Verizon incarnation.
