The oft-troubled Tizen platform from Samsung – seemingly in perpetual limbo between ‘coming soon’ and ‘probably not’ – has received yet another ray of hope in light of the recently cancelled Samsung Z project.
Reports out of India indicate that Samsung is planning to release at least one non-flagship Tizen smartphone later this year on or around India’s Diwali festivities in November.
Either the SM-Z130E or SM-Z130H are expected to contend in India’s entry-level markets, with the distinct possibility of both devices getting unveiled. Not many details are known about either handset, though Samsung has previously stated that their in-house Tizen OS could run on as little as 256MB of RAM – markedly a device targeted at price-conscious consumers.
Samsung hopes to boost Tizen into contention through its Club Samsung 2.0 service, which will offer localized music, videos and TV shows. Tarun Malik, director of Samsung’s Media Solutions Center for Southwest Asia – the team charged with promoting Tizen in India – expects that Samsung’s alternate OS offering will be able to contend with already-established media streaming services such as Airtel Wynk and Vodafone Music Store.
“We started late, but we are very focused. We are not shooting in the wild. This is a game that has to be led by the device manufacturer and not the pipe (telecom operators),” Malik told India’s Economic Times.
Expect more info to surface on Samsung’s Tizen offerings in the coming months, and whether we’ll finally see one of the devices up for sale.
