Samsung’s first Tizen phone is finally here — beginning of the end for Galaxy?
Samsung’s finally done it, folks — they’ve brought their first Tizen-based smartphone. It’s the Samsung Z. No Galaxy in the name, naturally, because it doesn’t run Android. It’s very much a Samsung phone, though. It features TouchWiz with S Health 3.0, a fingerprint scanner, and a heart rate monitor. It has a 2.3Ghz quad-core processor 2GB of RAM. And it even has that familiar faux leather back that some of Samsung’s latest products have been sporting. Unfortunately the display doesn’t quite match up at 4.8 inches and 720p resolution, but that’s good enough for any decent smartphone.
So what now? Is Samsung going to make a full-fledged attempt to replace their Android-based Galaxy lineup with Tizen-based offerings like they did with smart watches? By extension, is the Samsung Galaxy line doomed? And by further extension, is Android doomed?
Not likely. Samsung still has a long way to go if they want to ween off the alc– I mean, Android. Tizen doesn’t currently have much developer support, and even if Samsung begins courting a good deal of developers it wouldn’t be able to match up to the prowess of Google Play. And we all know users go where the apps are (which is probably why Microsoft is having a tough time finding solid footing in the smartphone space).
The short answer is that this shouldn’t be worrying anyone. We’re sure Samsung would love to someday blossom into Apple and produce all their own software and hardware, but that day likely isn’t around the corner or even up the street. They have to start somewhere, though, and this is where they’ll begin.
[via Samsung Tomorrow]