Galaxy S Australian pricing, ebook offer

Arguably Samsung's hottest smartphone at the moment is coming to Australia and Samsung is bringing some friends to the party.

You've probably read the hardware specs for the Galaxy S a dozen times already — the 1GHz processor, 16GB storage and 4-inch Super AMOLED screen — but during the phone's launch yesterday Samsung also outlined a few features of the phone not often detailed in spec sheets.

Samsung also announced a four-week exclusive with Optus which will range the Galaxy S on its Social Cap plans. The handset will be AU$0 upfront on a AU$59 per month Social Cap, which includes unmetered access to Facebook, Twitter and MySpace, plus 1GB of data for web browsing and applications downloads outside of those social network sites. Click through for the Galaxy S ebook offer.

On the same day that Borders launches its Kobo ebook reader app onto the Android Market, the multinational bookstore will join forces with Samsung to bring the e-reader software to the Galaxy S. To sweeten the deal, Borders will give all new Optus Galaxy S customers one free Australian book at launch, with a choice between The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas or Underbelly: the Golden Mile by John Silvesro and Andrew Rule.

Taking a cue from its rivals at Motorola, Samsung has pre-installed a Swype keyboard on the Galaxy S.

Got a PC that desperately needs an internet connection or a friend who is too cheap to upgrade their mobile data plan? The Galaxy S will solve all of these issues with its portable Wi-Fi hotspot mode, capable of sharing with up to eight devices simultaneously.

Never lose the fight for the remote again. The Galaxy S comes with an app for controlling new Wi-Fi-capable Samsung TVs and media sharing via DLNA.

Samsung showed some interesting stats during the launch of the Galaxy S, including one slide showing Android's 250 per cent growth in Australia over the last year. We should note that this slide doesn't mention the base number before the growth, which we suspect was pretty low at Q1 2009.