Tech Launch:Samsung launches Z1 Tizen phone at Rs 5,700

NEW DELHI: Samsung unveiled its first Tizen based smartphone on Wednesday aimed at the lower end market.

Tizen is Samsung’s ‘home –gown’  light weight operating system, aimed at breaking the South Korean electronics giant’s dependence on Google’s Android. The Z1, which has 3G capability and an LED display, was launched in India with a price tag of Rs 5,700 ($90).

The Tizen operating system is a key part of Samsung’s campaign to carve out a niche in mobile software and services, to complement its dominant hardware role.

The Samsung Z, which was specially developed by Samsung to run on the Tizen platform, had initially been earmarked for launch in Russia in the second half of last year.

But the launch was pushed back in order to “further enhance the Tizen ecosystem”, the company said at the time.

It was the latest in a series of delays for the Tizen rollout, which had originally been scheduled for 2012.

The vast majority of Samsung’s popular devices, including its flagship Galaxy S smartphones, use the Android operating system.

Samsung has touted Tizen as a platform not just for phones, but for a range of connected devices from home appliances to door locks and watches which could communicate with one another in the future.

The company unveiled its first-ever Tizen smart TVs at a consumer electronics fair in Las Vegas earlier this month.

In a nod to the power of the Indian entertainment market, the phone comes with free access — for a three-month period — to a wide range of Bollywood movies, TV shows and music.