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This post was updated to add the price of Google’s version of the Galaxy S4 phone.

Samsung Electronics, the biggest phone maker in the world, has been instrumental in making Google Android the most popular mobile operating system. But the search giant still wants to have Android its own way on Samsung’s new flagship phone, the Galaxy S4.

Google on Wednesday said it would sell a version of Samsung’s Galaxy S4 running its own “stock” version of Android, not Samsung’s modified version. The device will go on sale in Google’s online store, called Play, on June 26, according to Hugo Barra, vice president of product management for Android. The phone will cost $650 and will come unlocked.

“This is Google’s take on Android, and it feels really awesome on the Galaxy S4,” Mr. Barra said in front of an audience at the company’s annual developers conference, called Google I/O.

It’s unclear what Google’s strategy is behind selling Samsung’s phone in its own store with a high price tag. Google’s past efforts to sell phones through its own online store — without the support and promotion of wireless carriers like AT&T and Verizon Wireless — have not been successful.

Jan Dawson, a telecom analyst at Ovum, said Google was probably selling the Samsung phone with its own version of software to quell common complaints that the Nexus phones that Google sells are often not ideal — they have had poor cameras or they have lacked compatibility with the latest fourth-generation wireless network, for example. The Samsung phone with Google’s stock version of Android could appease influential people in the Android community, which would improve the overall image of the operating system, he said.

“This is a way for Google to say, ‘We’re going to make one of the best Android devices out there available unlocked with stock Android’ to negate those complaints once and for all,” he said. “It’s never going to be a huge seller, but it resolves a common complaint for a disproportionately influential part of the base, which will have wider-reaching benefits for Google and the ecosystem.”