Galaxy Nexus Goes Live on Verizon: Five Smartphones to Consider Before You Buy One

Galaxy Nexus finally went on sale Dec. 15 at Verizon, and it's $300 on contract with a bonus data deal available for a limited time from Verizon's Web site. That $300 is the highest price you can expect to pay for a subsidized smartphone in the U.S. right now (only exception is the 64GB version of iPhone 4S). It's also on par with Verizon's other flagship phones. Droid Razr, HTC Rezound and the 32 gigabyte version of iPhone 4S. But Verizon has a couple other phones you may want to check out if you don't feel quite ready to drop $300 on a phone. They are the Droid Bionic and iPhone 4, and they certainly are cheaper (Bionic is $200 and the eight gigabyte iPhone 4 is $100). But, they also offer some great features that you might deem worthwhile, especially if it can save you $100-$200.

Of those five phones, only the iPhone doesn't run the Android system, and iPhone 4 does have less internal storage than the other four. Apple does offer some cloud-based storage, though, five gigabytes for documents, apps and music you purchase from Apple. That's a total of 13 gigabytes with Verizon's iPhone 4, so that might be a consideration if you have tons of apps and music, but the trade-off is in the $100 purchase price of the phone. iPhone 4S, on the other hand, has four times the storage capacity of iPhone 4, a better camera and Siri, the voice recognition software that can send messages and search the Web when you talk to it.Between the Droid Razr, Droid Bionic and HTC Rezound, there is less distinction other than the extremely thin build and unique shape of the Razr.

They all have bright 4.3-inch screens, are 4G enabled, have eight megapixel cameras, and, obviously, run Android. Eventually, they will get the Android 4.0 update the Galaxy Nexus comes with, it's just not known which will get it first or when. Those are the five main contenders for Galaxy Nexus from Verizon. Other carriers have a different selection of high-end devices, but of the five listed here, only the iPhone is available from anyone other than Verizon. Although it might take more time, it's best to head down to the store to test out the phones for yourself. Tell us in the comments which of these smartphones are on your holiday shopping list.