The Galaxy Nexus is Finally on Sale at Verizon Today

We were beginning to think it might never be released but, surprisingly, it looks like those Costco rumors were correct. Late yesterday, Verizon made the Galaxy Nexus release official, highlighting today, December 15, as launch day. This morning, the most anticipated Android phone of the year is finally available to buy in stores, so if you weren't able to snag one from an unsuspecting Best Buy employee this past weekend, you can now mosey on down to your local Verizon branch and pick one up. As we had heard before, the price for the device is $299.99 on top of a two-year contract.

Those that need reminding, the Galaxy Nexus is the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone and boasts a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display with a 1280×720 resolution; a dual-core 1.2 GHz Ti OMAP 4460 CPU; PowerVR SGX540 graphics; 1GB of RAM; up to 32GB of storage; a 5-megapixel camera capable of 1080p video and an additional 1.3-megapixel affair up front; a 1750 mAh battery; NFC; and, of course, Android 4.0. As far as form-factor is concerned, the phone's screen is slightly concave, ensuring the phone is comfortable against your face when you're talking. Similarly, the back is slightly curved to make it more comfortable to hold. Samsung has also ditched the glossy black case that Nexus S users are so used to wiping finger prints off of; in its place is a textured non-slip back that should please the clumsy and the obsessive wipers alike.

So, who's buying one?

Jane McEntegart works in marketing communications at Intel and was previously Manager of Content Marketing at ASUS North America. Before that, she worked for more than seven years at Tom's Guide and Tom's Hardware, holding such roles as Contributing Editor and Senior News Editor and writing about everything from smartphones to tablets and games consoles.