Samsung Galaxy Nexus owners will be welcomed to their new phone with an email from Google. The message popped into our inbox, now we're up and running on the new Android 4.0 phone.

The message is simple, reading: 

"Welcome to your Galaxy Nexus!

"Built in partnership by Samsung and Google, Galaxy Nexus has a vibrant high-definition sAMOLED display and is the first phone that comes with Android 4.0, Face Unlock, Android Beam and the latest Google apps. Simple, beautiful and beyond smart.

"For questions about network access, phone hardware, or billing, contact your mobile service provider or consult the documentation from Samsung that came with your phone." 

Before going on to provide links though to the support pages for the phone, which can be found at http://www.google.com/support/ics/nexus/

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus went on sale at 8am on Thursday 17 November, with high street retailer Phones4U claiming the prize for opening doors first, offering the phone from their Oxford Street store before you could buy it anywhere else in the World. 

The new Android 4.0 handset is the latest smartphone to land, bringing with it the first taste of the next generation of the Android operating system, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich, which fuses the previous Gingerbread and Honeycomb platforms together. It is designed to be one OS that bridges phones and tablets. 

The phone offers a 4.65-inch 1280 x 720 HD display, a 1.2GHz processor, 1GB RAM and a 5-megapixel camera capable of capturing Full HD video.

Naturally, we have one in the house, so will be bringing you a full review in the coming days.