Think back to January 5th, 2010. That was the date that the Nexus One was first announced and made available for purchase. I can vividly remember the announcement. I impatiently waited for someone to review the device, but the images I saw already confirmed my suspicions: this was going to be an incredible device. Even though it wasn’t on Verizon yet, I had plans to upgrade to it as soon as possible.

This vision of the Nexus One was a phone sold directly by Google to consumers. There was no store to try the device out. You went to google.com/phone to purchase the phone. If you had T-Mobile you could buy the phone unlocked for $529 or $179 on a new two year contract. Eventually a version of the Nexus One with AT&T bands was released in March. By April it was announced that the Nexus One would never be released on Verizon and that customers should buy the Droid Incredible instead. I was crushed, but I moved on (and eventually did get a Droid Incredible, which now sits on my desk running CM7). 

One of the first fully working Ice Cream Sandwich ports has been produced and made public to anyone with a Nexus S. Kellex and I just spent the last hour drooling, ooohing and awing over this thing on our very own devices – it’s super impressive. It’s not the Android 4.0 that you saw at the Hong Kong event and is instead the version we saw a few weeks prior running on none other than a Nexus S. It works, has almost all of the goodies you have been teased with, and will likely make the Nexus S our weekly driver for the next week or so until the Galaxy Nexus is released.

So what we have for you below then, is a massive gallery of how almost all of the new features in ICS will look. You will see the new launcher, widgets, Gmail, camera app, dialer, People app, gallery, keyboard, browser, swiping notifications, Google Talk account switching, etc. If you need a rehashing of all things Android 4.0, we hope this helps.  

We are doing our best to forget about the fact that Ice Cream Sandwich and the Galaxy Nexus will not be unveiled next week at CTIA, and have instead found ourselves analyzing the hell out of the two ICS videos that have popped up in the last week. There are so many differences in them that we just had to point them out to everyone to get community opinions.

The first video we attached is from the Nexus S running ICS that was reportedly purchased on eBay.  It looks almost exactly as we had all pictured in our minds – Honeycomb turned tiny.  The second video is from this morning’s mega-leak featuring the G-Nex. It’s almost like the grown up or more polished version of ICS that we had actually hoped for.  One looks minimal yet sophisticated and buttery – the other looks like stock tablet Honeycomb, which is not necessarily a compliment.

So let’s dive into the differences that we easily spotted and then talk about them afterwards.  

It was only a matter of time before someone jumped on eBay to buy a phone only to find that it came pre-loaded with the latest and for-the-most part unseen version of Android aka Ice Cream Sandwich.  The Nexus S pictured above and on video below was just released over at Engadget, giving us a fabulous look at Android 4.0 and all of its cyan-greenish tints, Honeycomb lock screen, recently used app scroller, and more.  

Today in other Android news…

• Sprint could launch their own LTE network as early as 2012.
• HTC is holding a Beats-inspired event in the UK October 6 – probably for the Bass.
• Speaking of Beats by Dre, the EVO 3D has a ROM with Beats software included.
• Nexus S has a new update to Android 2.3.6 that we are hoping fixes tethering issues.
• Product pages for the T-Mo Galaxy SII and HTC Amaze 4G are up with lots of goodies.

To stay up-to-date on the latest non-Verizon Android news, be sure to subscribe to Android Life.

With all of this Google Wallet and Nexus S talk this week, we wanted to point out that NFC can do more than just make and receive payments.  In fact, after watching the video above that demonstrates how Near Field Communication can also be used to do things like unlock your house, we are more excited than ever for companies to start widely adopting it.  Now, the phone in the video is clearly an iPhone, but just imagine it as your Galaxy Nexus on Verizon.

What other uses can we get out of NFC?  I’m thinking cars, right?  We already have keyless entry and start-ups, why not NFC too?  Can you imagine how lovely life would be if you didn’t have to carry around 3 different sets of keys all of the time?

Via:  Engadget

• Samsung plans to file suit against Apple the minute the iPhone 5 is announced.
• Certainly did not take long for the Samsung Epic 4G Touch on Sprint to get rooted.
• AT&T will attempt to sell off assets in order to get their T-Mobile acquisition approved.
• The Galaxy Tab 8.9 will be $469 (16GB) and $569 (32GB) at Best Buy.
• Samsung shows off their fancy resizable Galaxy SII widgets. No 3rd party launcher required.
• Nexus S 4G on Sprint received its Google Wallet update today.

To stay up-to-date on the latest non-Verizon Android news, be sure to subscribe to Android Life.