Samsung Galaxy S5 and Galaxy Gear wearables officially launch in Australia

Samsung’s new flagship Galaxy S5 smartphone and Galaxy Gear series of wearables are now officially available in Australia across Vodafone, Telstra and Optus, with devices also shipping to pre-order customers.

The launch has included the Australian release of all the devices in the Galaxy Gear wearable range, including the Galaxy Gear 2, Gear Neo and Gear Fit.

Samsung made the devices available directly through its Experience Stores in Sydney and Melbourne from 9.30am, with the company hiring Olympic athletes to greet customers of the new devices.

The new devices were available from 7am for Telstra customers from 8am through its George Street, Melbourne Central, Westfield Marion, Hay Street Mall and Queens Street Mall.

The carrier also ran a series of fitness events at the Circular Quay lower foreshore and the company’s flagship Bourke Street Mall store.

Vodafone similarly opened its main stores in each capital city at 6am, or 7am for Adelaide and Brisbane.

Meanwhile, according to a post on Optus’ official Facebook page, the carrier has the Galaxy S5 in black and white, and is still waiting for deliveries of other colours (including gold) within the next couple of weeks.

As SmartCompany has previously reported, the Galaxy S5 is a waterproof and dustproof smartphone built on a 2.5GHz quad-core processor running Google Android 4.2.2 KitKat.

It includes a 5.1-inch full HD AMOLED display with a display resolution of 1920 by 1080 pixels, again slightly larger than the 4.8-inch display on its predecessor.

The GS5 also features a removable 2800 mAh battery, a capacity increase from the 2600 mAh batter in the GS4 and 2100 mAh in the GS3.

In terms of memory, it includes 2GB of RAM, 16 or 32 GB of internal memory, which can be upgraded using microSD cards.

The device is also larger in all dimensions than its predecessor, measuring at 142mm by 72.5mm by 8.1 mm, compared to 138.6mm by 69.8mm by 7.9 mm for its predecessor.