After officially becoming available last Thursday, Verizon’s Nexus 6 variant has started arriving on customer doorsteps today. The device was originally slated to ship or arrive on March 18th for customers who pre-ordered. Many customers report that their phone’s tracking initially showed an arrival date of the 17th, so today’s arrival is a nice surprise for many (via Droid Life).
Remember the Nexus 6 launch waaaay back before the holiday shopping season last year? That’s when everyone except Verizon started carrying the Nexus 6 in the US. Shamefully, today, they are officially launching the phone almost 6 months after it launched on its competitors. It will be available to buy (After lots of rumors and delays) starting tomorrow and in Verizon Stores on March 19th for $250 on a 2 year Verizon plan or$27.08/month x24 on Verizon Edge (ouch – comparatively the $650 iPhone 6 is $199 subsidized).
A small bonus, it will ship with Android 5.1 and will come with 6 months of Google Play All Access – which will expire right about the time the next Nexus phone is launched. Verizon clearly has some catching up to do in the area of keeping modern and playing fair.
People have purchased the Nexus 6 from Google Play or other venues for $650 have had no issues putting in a Verizon SIM and at a $250 subsidized price, there is no reason to stop now. There is certainly some very bad blood between Google and Verizon – perhaps related to the latter’s MVNO ambitions. Verizon and Motorola continue to be good partners on their Droid lineup.
Press release follows:
Expand
Expanding
Close
It’s been a long time coming for the Verizon Nexus 6, but several new pieces of information that popped up this morning and over the weekend (including a quote straight from a Verizon customer service representative) suggest that the device should be seeing a public launch—at least via Internet sales channels—on March 12th. We now have some information on pricing as well, and it looks like the device might just be shipping with Android 5.1 on the Big Red…
Expand
Expanding
Close
Samsung unveiled the Galxay S6 and S6 Edge earlier this week at Mobile World Congress, and immediately all major United States carriers announced plans to offer both devices, but without any pre-order or launch information. Today, however, Verizon has announced that it will open pre-orders for the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge on April 1st.
Verizon this evening has revealed that it is starting to rollout Android 5.0 Lollipop to its HTC One M8 variant. The update packs all of the features we’ve come to know and love with Android 5.0, as well as a few new tweaks and enhancements exclusive to the M8 on Verizon.
LG announced today that it’s beginning the global rollout of its new LG G Flex 2 smartphone that it first unveiled early this year at CES 2015.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Just one day after T-Mobile CEO John Legere announced the wireless provider surpassed Sprint to become the number three carrier in the country, Sprint today announced a new aggressive shared data plan that it says offers better value compared to T-Mobile, AT&T, and Verizon.
Expand
Expanding
Close
It’s been a long time coming for the Nexus 6 on Verizon. Earlier this week, it was discovered that the carrier had updated one of the pages on their website with a banner saying that the device would be “coming soon,” and now we have a bit of confirmation that “soon” might mean “before the end of February.” A new image that has surfaced this morning (via Android Police) shows purported release dates for both the Nexus 6 and the Galaxy Core Prime.
Verizon is following its More Everything holiday promotion today with a new limited time promo for its customers, the carrier announced today. Starting tomorrow, Verizon will begin offering customers data plans at new price points from 1GB up to 20GB with most price tiers being reduced by $10/month compared to their previous rates.
With the new plans, customers can take advantage of plans with the same data amount at a cheaper rate, or pay the same price and receive a data increase. Additionally, Verizon will introduce more data tiers with 12GB, 14GB, and 16GB options.
Expand
Expanding
Close
The Nexus 6 is finally coming to Verizon Wireless, making it the last carrier to get the device. The availability date is currently unknown, but according to a new banner on the carrier’s site, the phone is “coming soon.”
Users can sign up for updates through Verizon’s website for updates on the availability of the Nexus 6. The Motorola-built device became available late last year. In our review, NewGeekGuide’s Dom Esposito said the phone “set a new standard for Android devices.”
Verizon has always been one of the slower carriers to update their devices to the latest and greatest firmware, but today it seems that the company is breaking that tradition. The Android 5.0 Lollipop update for the Samsung Galaxy S5 started rolling out in some small international countries in December, but this is the first we’ve heard of an American carrier pushing the update.
Verizon Wireless is pleased to announce an operating system update to Android 5.0 Lollipop. This version brings Android beyond smartphones and tablets, allowing access to apps and Android services on other connected screens like TV’s, cars and wearables. The new material design offers complex animations, 3-D views and improved runtime.
You can find the announcement PDF for the update on Verizon’s website. In-mid-January, it was reported that Samsung was rolling out the update to the Galaxy S5 in the United Kingdom, following its tiered rollout in Poland, Spain, Russia, and Malaysia. This update, notably, is Android 5.0, not Google’s latest official build, which is 5.0.2.
(via Android Police)
Just one day after T-Mobile unveiled its Smartphone Equality program letting loyal customers avoid credit checks, Sprint has announced a new promotion specifically targeting T-Mobile customers with an offer to make switching carriers easier. Sprint’s latest buyback and trade-in offer joins the carrier’s existing ‘Cut Your Bill in Half’ promo which encourages AT&T and Verizon customers to switch; T-Mobile was notably missing from that offer. Here’s how Sprint details the new promotion for T-Mobile customers:
Expand
Expanding
Close
NBCUniversal announced today that it will offer a free live stream of Super Bowl XLIX on Feb. 1 to all desktop and tablet users to promote its TV Everywhere service. For smartphones, Verizon has exclusive rights to stream the event to users through its own mobile app.
Expand
Expanding
Close
We’ve seen several new Android phones debut at CES 2015 from Asus, LG, Lenovo, and Verizon announced today availability for one of the more interesting smartphones announced in 2014 with its launch of the Samsung Galaxy Note Edge. First announced by Samsung in September of last year, the Galaxy Note Edge features a 5.6-inch quad HD super AMOLED display with a dramatic curve alongside the right of the phone for displaying notifications, controls, app icons, and more. Check out our hands-on video for the Galaxy Note Edge and read on for Verizon availability details.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Google and Verizon announced on Tuesday that they have entered into a long-term patent cross-licensing agreement to “reduce the risk” of future litigation (via VentureBeat). Both companies expressed interest in reaching similar agreements with other large tech companies in an effort to thwart patent trolls that assert their patents in the courtroom in an effort to pad their pockets.
Expand
Expanding
Close
While the traditional wireless landscape in the United States has consisted of AT&T and Verizon Wireless as the heavyweights and Sprint and T-Mobile as the underdogs, the divide between the carriers appears to be quickly narrowing. Sprint and T-Mobile have both introduced highly-competitive plans and promotional offerings in the fourth quarter, leading many consumers to switch carriers at a higher-than-average pace.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Sprint CEO Marcelo Claure teasing the new promotion
Sprint today announced a new campaign to attract wireless customers from competitors AT&T and Verizon with aggressively priced plans and an offer to help pay switching fees. Under the new promotion, which Sprint’s recently appointed CEO Marcelo Claure previously teased, the wireless carrier will offer to match Verizon and AT&T plans at half the cost for customers switching to Sprint.
Expand
Expanding
Close
Android 5.0 Lollipop for Verizon’s version of the 2014 Moto X is now live. The update is rolling out as an over-the-air software push that introduces a bevy of new features to Motorola’s flagship smartphone. For starters, your Moto X will be treated a new Material Design-themed layout loaded with Lollipop’s fluid animations, along with an updated notification setup that “intelligently” ranks alerts by type and who sent them. Software version 22.21.11 also introduces the ability to prioritize and set privacy notifications for each of your handset’s applications.
Verizon announced the availability of two low-cost LG tablets today. Priced at $300, LG’s full-size 10.1-inch tablet sports an HD IPS display, a 1.2GHz quad-core processor, a 5-megapixel rear-facing camera, a 1.3-megapixel front-facing shooter, 16GB of internal storage, an 8,000mAh battery and Android 4.4 KitKat. The smaller and cheaper ($250) 7-inch slate features nearly identical specifications, with the exceptions of its smaller stature and its 4,000mAh cell.
It’s not the first LTE Chromebook, but it’s the first from Asus to offer cellular connectivity with sales of the device quietly kicking off at Best Buy and other retailers late last week. Asus doesn’t appear to have made an official announcement, but an LTE version of the C300 Chromebook variant is now selling through Best Buy according to an announcement sent over from Altair Semiconductor, the company providing the LTE chip for the Chromebook:
Expand
Expanding
Close
Verizon Wireless has updated its customer agreement with new conditions related to early termination fees. Effective today, new customers that purchase a device on contract will be required to pay a full $350 early termination fee during the first seven months of the contract if it is broken. The fee is reduced by $10 per month between months 8-18, $20 per month between months 19-23 and $60 in the final month of the contract term…
Expand
Expanding
Close
When you hear the word Droid, you probably think of two things: Star Wars and Android. While both items are a correct association, the latter comes with a bit of a twist. Armed with a licensing agreement with Lucasfilm, Verizon launched the Motorola Droid in the fall of 2009. To make a long story short; the device went on to become one of the first commercially successful Android smartphones, but with one small carryover. Verizon ran a very aggressive, but highly successful marketing campaign for the Motorola Droid and as a result, casual tech consumers started referring to Android phones and tablets as “Droids.”
Up until now, Verizon has typically released a few Droid-branded phones each year. But here we are at the end of 2014 and its hardware partner Motorola Mobility has been busy working on its own smartphones like the Moto X, which recently launched across multiple wireless carriers, including Verizon. With the exception of a questionable camera and a few small quirks, the former Google company’s flagship handset is truly sublime. So when Big Red and Motorola announced the Droid Turbo, we saw a device that looked to right some of the Moto X’s wrongs, at least on paper. However, is it really enough to lure us away from the phone that made us feel all warm and fuzzy just two short months ago?
The second-generation Moto X has been on sale for about two months and while we love the Moto Maker’s customization options for the Lenovo-owned company’s flagship smartphone, Verizon has just raised the stakes. Today, the carrier announced a new football leather Moto X as a Big Red exclusive. Available now for $120 under a new two year service agreement, this stylish option gives the Moto X’s wooden backing a run for its money.
