Samsung has unveiled the second smartphone to use its own Tizen operating system, as the South Korean company attempts to chip away at Android’s market share.
The Samsung Z3 will be available from October 21 in India at a cost of approximately $130. Its predecessor, the Z1 (Samsung appears to have misplaced the Z2), only cost around $90, so it remains to be seen whether consumers will accept the price increase.
If customers do prove receptive to the new model they will receive a smartphone boasting a 5-inch 720p Super AMOLED screen, a quad-core 1.3 GHz processor, 1GB of RAM and 8GB of internal storage. The handset also comes with 3G connectivity, an 8-megapixel rear camera and a 5-megapixel front-facing lens.
JK Shin, CEO and head of IT and mobile business at Samsung, believes that the new release shows that the phone manufacturer is not ready to give up on Tizen just yet.
"As a pioneer of Tizen platform, we have continuously introduced Tizen-based mobile devices, including Samsung Z1 and Samsung Gear S2, in our commitment to develop the Tizen ecosystem", he said. "We developed the Samsung Z3 to provide the features that will help consumers capitalize on the growing Tizen ecosystem and make the most out of their personal mobile experience".
Although Samsung still has an impressive market share in the smartphone industry, its profit figures are hampered by the fact that many of its handsets use the Android operating system developed by Google. This also means that Samsung has less control over the software used on its devices. It is expected that the South Korean firm will release further Tizen-powered devices this year and look to encourage greater third-party support for the platform.
Aside from high-end television sets and the Gear 2 smartwatch, the Z1 smartphone is the only other device to run on Tizen, but Samsung is likely to be encouraged by impressive sales figures in India following its release back in January.
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