It was a while coming, but Samsung’s just launched the Galaxy Note, which will be available this week from Optus and Vodafone.
We already knew that the Galaxy Note was due to launch with Vodafone at some point, and it was widely tipped for other carriers as well.
For those who joined the party late, the Galaxy Note is Samsung’s larger, stylus-equipped (Samsung calls it the S-Pen; it’s a stylus) 1280×800 5.3 inch touchscreen Android 2.3 phone; you can check its comparative specifications in our smartphone roundup here.
Optus will offer it on a $79 cap, while Vodafone have it for $5/month on a $59 cap; Telstra will have it April. It will also be available for outright purchase at $899.
The Galaxy Note isn’t the newest phone on the block, having been available via various direct importers for some months now; by way of comparison with the official pricing, Mobicity’s selling the Galaxy Note for $699, Kogan’s got it for $559; a significant saving on the RRP. Samsung’s take on this is that the local model is optimised for 850Mhz and comes with included applications such as turn-by-turn navigation, along with the rather ominous warning in terms of parallel imports: “Buyer beware. Be sure that what is claimed on a website is accurate.”.
Speaking at the launch, Samsung reaffirmed that it would continue to support a variety of products, including Android, Windows Phone 7 and its own Bada platform.