Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) has given out customized versions of the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone to many of their employees as a Christmas gift. The back of the Galaxy Nexus has a customized cover. The cover has Google+ and Android icons. Google’s London and Zurich offices are giving out free devices to employees and required their staff to line up and claim their free handsets. [TNW]

This is some bad news for people that have an interest in working with Google Wallet, the Galaxy Nexus, and Verizon. It is also likely that My Verizon Mobile and Backup Assistant will come pre-loaded on the device. Google Wallet is an app that lets you buy products and check out with your phone using near-field communications (NFC). Your credit card would be charged through the phone. Why would Verizon do this? Perhaps because Verizon has their own phone payment service called ISIS? [ComputerWorld]

The Wall Street Journal has reported that the Verizon Galaxy Nexus will cost $299.99 on a new two-year contract. This will be the same price as the HTC Rezound and the Motorola Droid RAZR. This seems to be a new price-point for these higher-end smartphones, even though consumers have gotten so used to the go-to price of $200. The Wall Street Journal was able to get details on the price, but not the release date unfortunately. [WSJ]

The Verizon Galaxy Nexus is expected to arrive on the week of Black Friday or slightly after that date. There is a slight chance that the device could arrive by Black Friday. The Galaxy Nexus is an Android smartphone that is the third generation successor to Google’s previous flagship devices the Nexus One and Nexus S. The smartphone has an HD display, improved camera system, and the Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) operating system. The Galaxy Nexus has a 4.65-inch 1280×720-pixel HD Super AMOLED PenTile curved glass display, dual-core 1.2GHz TI OMAP 4460 processor (ARM-Cortex-A9) with PowerVR SGX540 1GB of RAM. The phone has a 1.3 megapixel front camera and a 5 megapixel rear camera capable of 1080p video, 4G , WiFi a/b/g/n, Bluetooth, GPS, Barometer, and NFC. [Droid-Life]