Google, Best Buy Set for Nexus S Debut

Google's Nexus S smartphone starts selling next week at Best Buy.
By Maggie Overfelt ,

Nexus S story updated with analyst comment

NEW YORK (

TheStreet

) --

Google's

(GOOG) - Get Report

second foray into the smartphone space, the Nexus S, hits shelves at

Best Buy

(BBY) - Get Report

on Dec. 16, according to a

company blog post

.

The Nexus S

, which will be sold for $529 by itself or $199 with a two-year

T-Mobile

contract, is built by

Samsung

, features a 4-inch display, a 1-gigahertz Hummingbird processor and the new Android 2.3 operating system, known as Gingerbread.

The Nexus S also has front- and rear-facing cameras and support for near-field communications, meaning users will be able to pick up and exchange data with a wave of the phone -- a technology that could be used, for example, to make mobile payments in stores.

"The volume and variety of Android devices continues to surpass our wildest expectations -- but we're not slowing down," wrote Andy Rubin, Google's vice president of engineering, in the blog post. "We co-developed this product with Samsung ... as part of the Nexus brand, Nexus S delivers what we call a 'pure Google' experience: unlocked, unfiltered access to the best Google mobile services and the latest and greatest Android releases and updates."

The Nexus S arrives seven months after Google killed its Nexus One effort, a solid

HTC

-built phone that failed to sell well in its online-only model amid a crop of successful Android phones at

Verizon

(VZ) - Get Report

,

Sprint

(S) - Get Report

and T-Mobile.

"Selling online was an abject failure," said Ramon Llamas, a senior research analyst at

IDC

. "But selling through Best Buy -- a place where there are deals to be had and where they don't have an agenda to push -- is a very smart move by Google and Samsung."

Sales of the Nexus S will be closely watched. Google's Android powers more than 100 different smartphone models and is activated on more than 200,000 phones a day, according to Google, prompting some critics to wonder how well the Nexus S will stand out a crowded market, just months ahead of a new, formidable competitor: a CDMA version of

Apple's

(AAPL) - Get Report

iPhone.

Shares of Google, also bolstered by news that its rumored deal to buy

Groupon

fell through

, were trading up more than $5.65 to $578.70 late Monday.

--Written by Maggie Overfelt in New York.

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http://twitter.com/maggieoverfelt

.

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