After much speculation, the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the first device in the U.S. to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, will land on Verizon Wireless Thursday, Dec. 15.

The announcement, which came late Wednesday, arrived after reports that the phone was being delayed over a dispute between the carrier and Google over the Google Wallet application, which doesn't work on Verizon's version.

It will be sold at Verizon Wireless stores and online for $299.99 with a new two-year customer agreement. It will run on Verizon's 4G LTE network.

The Galaxy Nexus features a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display with 1280x720 resolution. The Galaxy Nexus has a dual-core 1.2GHz processor and an HTML5 Web browser, putting it at the top of smartphones that support the emerging Web standard. It also features a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera and 1.3-megapixel front-facing camera for video chat.

Verizon also said Wednesday that it will double the amount of data offered with the phone for the same monthly fee in a limited offer for all its 4G LTE smartphones. That means a $30-per-month data package would provide 4GB of data instead of the normal 2GB, a spokesman for Verizon said.

Google and Samsung first showed off the Galaxy Nexus at an October event in Hong Kong. The smartphone made its debut overseas last month, but the release date for the Verizon version in the U.S. has been delayed.

The new feature in the Galaxy Nexus is the Near Field Communication technology to support a data-sharing app called Android Beam. The upgraded Face Unlock feature uses facial recognition to unlock the Galaxy Nexus. It will also be possible to upload up to 20,000 songs from the Web for free onto the cloud and stream it instantly on the Galaxy Nexus.

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