Samsung is best known for pushing as many and as many kinds of devices into the marketplace as possible, and this week holds no different for the Korean giant. This morning, we got a look at some import data that suggests that Samsung is working on bringing a Galaxy S5 that is powered by Tizen their own OS, instead of Android, to market this year. We see many thousands of devices go through import data records, but today, we saw three. Only three.
The Galaxy S5, for a recap, is Samsung’s Galaxy S line flagship for 2014. It’s got a 5.1 inch 1920 by 1080 pixel AMOLED display, a beastly Exynos 4400 series octa-core processor, grouped and clocked at 4x 1.9 Ghz and 4x 1.3 Ghz, backed by 2 GB of RAM, as well as 16 or 32 GB of storage, with the obvious addition of an SD Card slot by Samsung to allow up to 128 GB of external storage. The Galaxy S5 shipped with Android 4.4.2, Kit Kat, installed, but this new variant will be working with the Tizen OS, made by Samsung.
These three devices are interesting because of a few main things. First, the name of shipped item is labeled as having Tizen on it, and it being a test phone. Next, we have the price of each individual device, which is, when converted from Indian Rupees, is roughly $904 (USD). For these three devices, the value of the package is over $2,700 (USD) which is outstandingly pricey, but makes sense given that these devices are experimental and test-stage phones right now.
The devices shipped from South Korea on June 28, along with two even pricier Galaxy S5 Mini devices, whose individual value is just about $950 (USD), so Samsung is very much doing a limited test run of these devices before making thousands, or even hundreds of them, before they get certification in target markets or are proven to be fully functional under all circumstances.
The Galaxy S5 Mini, likely shipped along with the Tizen-clad S5, is said to have a smaller 4.5 inch 1280 by 720 pixel AMOLED display, an Exynos 3 series processor with 4 cores inside, and 1.5 GB of RAM to power it, as well as 16 GB of storage. Keep watching our skies for any news about the S5 with Tizen and the S5 Mini.
