Samsung Galaxy Nexus - Official - 004Whenever a major company sends a press release out last thing Friday before packing it in for the weekend, you know it’s not a press release they’re too excited about sending. The idea is if you break the news late in the day – or at the very end of the week, even – it’ll be all but forgotten by the time the next news cycle kicks in.

Based on that theory, I’m guessing Verizon Wireless really wanted to announce an actual ship date and price for the just launched Samsung Galaxy Nexus, aka The First Ice Cream Sandwich phone. But for whatever reasons they couldn’t pin down a date and price just yet. So they did what they could and pushed a rather unsatisfying bit of PR our way at 6pm EST on a Friday: “Galaxy Nexus will be available later this year in Verizon Wireless Communications Stores and online.” The only dollar sign to be found anywhere in the document is the one mentioning that a $69.99/month smartphone voice and data plan will be the minimum necessary if you want to use the newest Nexus phone on VZW’s network.

Beyond that, it’s basically more of what we already knew. The press release did confirm that the phone will support 4G LTE on Big Red, but we kinda knew that already. The rest we heard at the Samsung/Google launch event earlier this week:

  • 4G LTE – customers can expect fast download speeds of 5 to 12 megabits per second (Mbps) and upload speeds of 2 to 5 Mbps in 4G LTE mobile broadband coverage areas
  • Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich
  • First smartphone to feature a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED™ display (1280 x 720)
  • 1.2 GHz dual-core processor with 1GB RAM
  • 5-megapixel autofocus camera with LED flash, zero shutter lag and 1080p full HD video capture
  • 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chatting
  • Near Field Communications (NFC) enabled
  • Android Beam allows customers to quickly share Web pages, apps and YouTube™ videos with friends by simply tapping compatible phones together
  • Support for Google™ mobile services – Android Market, Gmail™, Google Maps™ 5.0 with 3D maps, Google Earth™, Movie Studio, YouTube™, syncing with Google Calendar™ and a redesigned Google＋ app
Ah well, gives us something to wonder about still: I’m guessing $249 on contract, available the week of November 7th. Whaddaya y’all say?