The Android smartphone Samsung Galaxy S I9000 is now available at stores in Germany. Web stores offer it for purchase prices beginning at € 465.00 including delivery. O2 Germany has been the only German network operator so far selling the Samsung Galaxy S for € 549.00. But eventually mobile phone users will find this touch-screen smartphone of manufacturer Samsung at all other network operators’ stores as well.

Samsung Galaxy S I9000, Pictures: Phone Guide Germany

The Samsung Galaxy S I9000 comes in a plastic body and is powered by Android 2.1 (Eclair) and boasts a 4-inch Super AMOLED touch-screen with a resolution of 800 x 480 pixels, a 1-GHz CPU, a 5-megapixel camera with HD video capture (720p) but without a flash light, a media player with a 3.5-millimeter headset jack, an FM radio, 8 GB storage capacity with support of microSD memory cards with up to 32 GB and an integrated GPS receiver. For data transfers it supports WLAN N, HSPA, Bluetooth 3.0 and a micro-USB port. The smartphone can be used as an ebook reader or for tethering, which means it can be connected to a laptop and function as a 3G modem. It can also act as a WiFi hotspot due to the feature called Mobile AP. Supposedly, the Samsung Galaxy S offers a talk time of up to 14 hours in GSM mode or up to 9 hours in 3G mode.

Samsung put its TouchWiz 3.0 user interface on top of the Android OS which offers up to seven homescreens on which users can put widgets, shortcuts or file folders. The software package includes live wallpapers, the text input method Swype, Google maps with turn-by-turn navigation, an email client with Exchange Activesync support, an app called Social Hub for integrating messages and social networking status updates, the office software called ThinkFree Office for viewing and editing documents, the augmented reality browser Layar and a YouTube client. The web kit browser supports multi-touch, but not Flash. Further apps can be downloaded from the app stores Android Market and Samsung Apps.

My first impressions after having tested the Samsung Galaxy S: The touch-screen is great, it is bright, sharp and shows strong colors. Typing or using the Swype input method is a lot of fun. Online widgets keep you up to date regarding your friends’ activities, new or weather data as long as the phone is connected to the web. Which means: You should book a mobile data tariff that includes enough data volume per month. There is a flight mode but users cannot easily switch off just the mobile data connections. The photo quality of the camera is mediocre. It is not certain yet that there will also be a 16 GB version of the Samsung Galaxy S.