About two years after pulling the plug on its online smartphone store, Google today announced that the Galaxy Nexus is now available for sale via Google Play.
The Samsung smartphone is on sale via a new Devices section within Google Play, formerly known as the Android Market.
"We want to give you a place to purchase Nexus devices that work really well with your digital entertainment," Andy Rubin, Google's senior vice president of mobile and digital content, wrote in a blog post.
The unlocked Galaxy Nexus is on sale for $399.99 and will work on the GSM network of your choice, including AT&T and T-Mobile. The Google Wallet app is pre-installed for mobile purchases. At this point, there is a limit of five per customer.
Google unveiled the Nexus One, known as the Google Phone at the time, back in January 2010. Users could purchase the device online at www.google.com/phone for $529.99 unlocked or $179.99 with a two-year contract from T-Mobile. At the time, Google Android product manager Erick Tse said the effort was intended to remove the carriers from the phone sales process. Sales were sluggish, however, and by May, Google announced plans to shift Nexus One sales to retail stores and shut down its Web store.
As PCMag mobile analyst Sascha Segan noted recently, "attacking the home turf of partners you need to launch your product doesn't work."
In his blog post, Rubin said Google has "come a long way since the first Android devices started hitting shelves three and a half years ago and since the launch of the first Nexus device." This time around, the company "implemented new customer support services to improve the purchasing experience on Google Play," he said.
Rubin pledged to bring the Devices section to other countries soon.
The Samsung Galaxy Nexus is the first U.S. smartphone to run Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. It landed on Verizon in December and on Sprint last week. The device features a 4.65-inch HD Super AMOLED display and runs a 1.2-GHz dual-core processor.
For more, see PCMag's full review of the Galaxy Nexus on Verizon Wireless and the slideshow below, as well as our review of Ice Cream Sandwich.
For more from Chloe, follow her on Twitter @ChloeAlbanesius.
