October of last year saw Google confirming its brand new Nexus 6 smartphone heading to all major U.S. carriers. However, only AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and US Cellular have it on their shelves, with the biggest carrier Verizon holding out. This week though, Verizon formally announces they would be carrying the new flagship phone from Google, with additional surprises.
The first Nexus phone to be offered by Verizon in years, the Nexus 6 is powered by a Snapdragon 805 processor with a 3 GB RAM, with options for either 32 or 64 GB internal storage. Sporting a 5.96-inch Corning Gorilla Glass 3 screen, it has a 2560 x 1440 Quad HD display on an aluminum frame. It also has a 13-megapixel camera with OIS and a fast f/2.0 aperture on the back, and a 2-megapixel camera on the front. With a 3220 mAh battery, the standby time for this phone is up to 240 hours, with a 24-hour continued usage time. The phone features Qi wireless charging and Motorola's Turbo Charger support for fast and convenient charging.
This new phone, made through the partnership between Google and Motorola, currently runs on Android 5.0 Lollipop, and Google already has plans to push a fix for an Android 5.0.1 update for its users. Verizon's surprise is that their OS version is already updated to 5.1 Lollipop with XLTE capability.
The Nexus 6 was made available on the Google Play Store mid-October last year, and U.S. carriers started offering it the following month. AT&T, Sprint, and T-Mobile started the pre-orders by November, and U.S. Cellular followed suit by December 8.
A two-year contract for the Nexus 6 under Verizon is priced at $249.99 and as of press time, orders are already backlogged and the Verizon site places it to be available again by March 18.
