Samsung Z – First Tizen Smartphone Announced for Russia

Samsung has revealed its very first smartphone to use the Tizen mobile operating system and the handset named Samsung Z will initially land in Russia in Q3.

Collecting the best of both worlds, the Samsung Z is said to be not too dissimilar from the Android handsets we’re used to in terms of handling the user interface, despite the squared off edges of its physical appearance which separates it from its Galaxy cousins.

The Tizen OS is based on Linux and its development has been governed by both Samsung and Intel. The Samsung Z has been a long time coming and is part of a product range Samsung will be launching in the coming months and the mobile will stand alongside the Samsung Galaxy Gear when the wearable tech updates to Tizen rather than the next Android version.

As far as specs go, the Tizen 2.2.1 driven Samsung Z will feature an ample 4.8-inch Super-AMOLED touchscreen display with 1280 x 720 pixel resolution and 2.3GHz quad-core CPU providing the power. There’s 2GB of RAM onboard with 16GB storage and microSD port for expanded memory if desired. Camera is a reasonable 8-megapixel and the Samsung Z will include the fingerprint scanner previously introduced with the Android based Samsung Galaxy S5.

It looks like Samsung seeks to ultimately break away from Google’s OS and create a new identity of its own but are cautiously trialling in Russia first before presenting the Samsung Z or other Tizen products to the rest of the world. Where this leaves the future of the globally successful Galaxy brand, if Sammy smites its long-time partnership with Google, is anyone’s guess at this point.

We may find out more as the Tizen Developer Conference which is taking place in San Francisco throughout this week.