Google has been busy today announcing a whole bunch of new and awesome stuff, including Android 4.1 Jelly Bean with Project Butter and major improvements to voice search, the Nexus 7 tablet, new stuff for Google Play, and the Nexus Q.
To go along with all of this, there’s one cool thing Google hasn’t announced. It seems that in honor of Jelly Bean and all the other goodies they’ve announced, Google has decided to take a chunk out of the price of the Galaxy Nexus. As of today, the HSPA+ Galaxy Nexus is avialable for $349 on Google Play. That’s a discount of $50 on the previous $399 price tag. While that may be less than you pay for the same phone through a carrier like Verizon, it gets you a contract-free phone that gets updates when Google releases them, rather than when the carrier gets around to it.
Considering Google’s Jelly Bean announcement today, that bit about updates is huge. Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is scheduled to ship in the middle of July. Considering that many Android phones haven’t even gotten the upgrade to 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, getting an Android phone that will get Jelly Bean as soon as it’s ready is a pretty big deal, and may be worth the little bit extra you’ll pay up front.