Save by Paying More for the Google Nexus

5:35 PM -- The unlocked $299.99 Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. (Korea: SEC) Galaxy Nexus Android phone now being sold by Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) could definitely save some money for cellular fans, particularly for users who travel internationally.

Just as Google unveiled this latest push with contract-free phones, Verizon Wireless slashed the price of its 4G Long Term Evolution (LTE) Galaxy Nexus by $100, to $199.99 with a two-year contract.

So I thought it would be good to compare how the cost of the Google Nexus and the Verizon Nexus stack up for a 24-month period: For Verizon, I selected the 450-minute voice plan, the cheapest $10 texting plan with 1,000 messages, and the $30 2GB 4G data plan. Big Red is currently offering double data on the LTE plan, which means you get 4GB of data a month. Verizon also adds a $35 activation fee for the phone.

So, assuming no data overages, you'd pay $2,154.75 overall over the two years of the Verizon Nexus contract.

If you twin the $299.99 Google Nexus phone sale with T-Mobile US Inc. 's $60 4G prepaid plan it costs $1,739.99 over two years for the phone and the plan. This T-Mobile plan gets you unlimited talk and text and so-called "unlimited" data, although T-Mobile actually throttles back data speeds after 2GB of downloads in a given month.

The real steal, however, is if you can hang with just 100 minutes of talk time a month: T-Mobile's $30 Web plan throttles back data speeds after 5GB of downloads and offers unlimited text, but not much yap. Buying that plan would cost $1,019.99 for the phone and the service over two years.

T-Mobile sells SIM cards for $1 over the phone, or for $7 to $25 when bought in-store, and the Galaxy Nexus is the phone they've seen the most SIMs purchased for recently. You can also grab a SIM kit off Amazon.com Inc. (Nasdaq: AMZN) for just over $5.

Of course, because the Galaxy Nexus from Google is a GSM-based phone, you can also swap in a SIM card from AT&T Inc. (NYSE: T) and many other wireless carriers worldwide. Being able to pick up a SIM at the airport for the Nexus will appeal greatly to users who go abroad a lot. You could save big on international data roaming fees.

— Dan Jones, Site Editor, Light Reading Mobile