Samsung Could Launch Tizen Smartphone On 10 December

Samsung is preparing to launch a low-cost Tizen smartphone in India, according to a report in South Korea’s Maeil Business Newspaper, which says the handset will be unveiled at a press conference on 10 December.

It is claimed a device called the ‘Samsung Z1’ will be shown off and will cost less than $100 in a bid to attract first time smartphone buyers in emerging markets, which will become increasingly important to phone makers as growth slows in developed nations.

Such a launch would ease some of the doubts surrounding Tizen, which is currently only running on a number of wearable devices, including the Samsung Gear S, but not a single smartphone.

Samsung Z1 Tizen

Samsung is one of the major backers of Tizen as it wants the platform to reduce the company’s reliance on Android, which powers the vast majority of its mobile devices.

The firm intended to launch a handset in Russia earlier this year, but these plans were abandoned with Samsung telling TechWeekEurope the delay was caused by a desire to build up the Tizen ecosystem – something which was far from encouraging given previous attempts to stimulate development.

The device touted for the Russian market was simply called the ‘Samsung Z’ and boasted many of the features included in the Samsung Galaxy S5, including the S Health application, ultra power saving mode, finger print sensor and download booster. It also had a 2.3GHz quad-core processor, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of internal storage. It is unclear what specifications the Samsung Z1 might have.

Tizen is just one of a number of open source operating systems hoping to offer an alternative to the likes of iOS, Android and Windows Phone, with Firefox OS, Sailfish OS and Ubuntu Mobile all in various stages of development.

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