Samsung Galaxy Nexus to come to Sprint 4/22; $199 on contract

We had long believed the Galaxy Nexus would be the first LTE-capable phone on the Sprint network, but then Sprint went and announced the LG Viper 4G LTE for a 4/22 launch. Guess what, Galaxy Nexus fans? The Galaxy Nexus will still be the first LTE device on the Sprint network; it just wasn't the first one announced.

On Monday, Sprint announced that the Galaxy Nexus will launch on that same day, 4/22. The Galaxy Nexus was the first smartphone to carry Android 4.0, but launched late last year exclusive to Verizon in the U.S.

Pre-orders begin today. The device will be the fairly typical $199 on-contract, but will include a $50 Google Wallet credit. Since Google Wallet comes with a $10 credit when people activate it, that means Sprint is topping that off with $40 more.

No one would turn down free money, would they?

The device is basically identical to Verizon's. It had been rumored that the device would have a faster, 1.5GHz processor, but that is not the case, in the specs that Sprint published.

Another LTE phone, the HTC EVO 4G LTE, will be available for pre-order on May 7. It will also be priced at $199 on-contract. The Galaxy Nexus' big advantage comes in that it, for lovers of a pure Android experience, it has no HTC Sense UI layer on it. The EVO 4G LTE will, however, have a 1.5GHz dual-core processor.

Sprint's LTE network will initially be available in Atlanta, Baltimore, Dallas, Houston, Kansas City, and San Antonio by mid-year. It is unclear when other regions will get LTE service.