For years now, Samsung has been working – in something of a partnership with Intel – on their own mobile operating system, dubbed Tizen. Smartphones running Tizen have been promised by Samsung for a long time now and they’re said to sit alongside their premium, Android-powered models like the Galaxy S and the Galaxy Note line. However, we still can’t shake the idea that Tizen is really a way for Samsung to eventually go it alone and well if it is Samsung now finally have a smartphone to offer those that – for some reason – want to get out of Google’s ecosystem and go all Samsung. The Samsung Z is the world’s first Tizen smartphone and while it’s taken Samsung a long time to get a smartphone together it sure seems like they took their time for a reason.
With a 4.8-inch 1280 x 720 Super AMOLED display it quickly becomes clear that the Z is a device aimed at those not looking to spend tons on a smartphone. That doesn’t mean the Z isn’t a powerful device though, as the quad-core 2.3 Ghz CPU (which sounds an awful lot like a new Intel Atom CPU to us) and it still packs 2GB of RAM and 16GB of expandable storage under the hood, too. Around the back of the device is an 8-megapixel camera and a 2.1-megapixel front-facing shooter.
As you might have expected, Samsung features are here in force, with many of the same camera modes from the Galaxy S5 listed by Samsung and S Health 3.0 is a big set of features that have made the jump from Android phones as well. Download Booster and Ultra Power Saving Mode are included in the Samsung Z, which should make better use of that 2,600 mAh battery.
The Samsung Z is to launch later this year in Russia, with Yandex onboard as the default search engine, with Samsung to run a year-long promotion to app developers looking to get their apps and games into the Tizen store. There’s no concrete word on pricing, but this is very much a mid-range device with a distinctly Samsung look and feel so Russians shouldn’t expect anything too high. In their announcement today, Samsung stated that there are plans to move into more markets globally as time moves on.
