14 DAY TRIAL // It looks like Samsung is pretty happy with how sales of its only Tizen-powered smartphone are going in the last 6 months, which is why the company plans to launch more devices running this operating system.
According to Reuters, a person with knowledge of the matter claims Samsung is readying several Tizen smartphones for this year. They will be priced at different tiers, so we should expect more advanced Tizen handsets not just low-end phones.
Unfortunately, the person offering the information declined to comment on specifications, but we will probably learn more about Samsung's upcoming Tizen handsets in the coming months.
In the same piece of news, Samsung recently confirmed that its Tizen-powered Z1 smartphone has just exceeded 1 million units sold since its release in India back in January, Economic Times India reports.
“It has been better than expectations for us. It stacks up equal and better with some of its neighboring models in our portfolio,” said Asim Warsi, vice president for marketing, mobile and IT at Samsung India.
A Gold version of Z1 will be launched soon
Given the popularity of the Z1 in India, Samsung will be launching Gold-colored version of the smartphone, which will be available for purchase for just Rs 5,000 ($80 / €70) outright.
Since it's an affordable smartphone, Samsung Z1 is only available in some countries from Asia and Africa and is less likely to be introduced in other regions.
However, the next Tizen-powered handsets that Samsung plans to launch this year might be rolled out globally, or at least some of them.
Samsung Z1 comes with dual-SIM support and sports a 4-inch PLS capacitive touchscreen display that features 480 x 800 pixels resolution.
The phone is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core Spreadtrum SC7727S processor, a Mali-400 graphics processing unit and 768MB of RAM.
Although it comes with only 4GB of internal memory, users can further expand storage up to 64GB via microSD cards slot.
Other highlights of the phone include 3-megapixel rear-facing camera, VGA secondary camera, 3G connectivity, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.1 support, FM Radio, microUSB 2.0 and GPS with AGPS.