Verizon Wireless Thursday announced the US availability of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus handset --- the first smartphone which is equipped with the latest iteration of Google's increasingly popular Android operating system, the Android 4.0 `Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS)' version. The handset is being sold by Verizon for $299.99 with a two-year contract.

The Galaxy Nexus is being considered quite a notable device by the analysts who have reviewed it; one of them being PCMag mobile analyst Sascha Segan, who is of the opinion that the ICS has brought on dozens of features and changes, as well as an improved interface, and a "much better use of the latest smartphone hardware."

Boasting a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED screen with 1280-by-720 resolution, the Galaxy Nexus is powered by a dual-core 1.2-GHz TI OMAP4460 processor. Some of the other attractive features of the next-generation Nexus handset include 1GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera to support video conferencing.

In addition, the Galaxy Nexus has a super-thin design profile and a curved back which, as per reports, has been contoured in such a way that it gives a handset a "softer, more natural look and feel."

Meanwhile, with the most recent addition of the Galaxy Nexus handset in its smartphone line-up, Verizon now a few `killer' LTE handsets smartphones, with the most notable among them being Motorola's Droid Bionic and Droid RAZR.