Samsung Z1 Price, Specs: $92 Mobile Phone Launches With Tizen OS

Mobile manufacturer Samsung is looking to shore up its profits in the near future after it saw them slide last year. To do this, the company has started aggressively releasing cheaper models. Recently, it brought out the Samsung Z1 in India. Priced at just $92, it is the first smartphone from Samsung to run the Tizen operating system.

Samsung already has some of its TVs and smartwatches running the Tizen OS, and it plans to create more phones and tablets with it. So far, however, Samsung has relied almost entirely on the Android operating system which has become as popular as the Apple iOS.

The Samsung Z1 will have a 4-inch PLS display with a resolution of 480x800 pixels. As for its platform it is going to run on the Tizen 2.3 and will have a dual core processor clocked at 1.2GHz. Along with this will come 768MB of RAM.

At its rear will be a 3.1-megapixel camera, while at the front will be a 0.3-megapixel VGA camera. Coming to onboard storage, it will have 4GB which can be expanded up to 64 GB via its microSD card slot. Its battery will be a 1500mAh version which can provide up to eight hours of talk time.

The Wall Street Journal, reporting on the launch, said Samsung had to overcome many hurdles in the development and introduction of a smartphone running the Tizen OS. Last year, it could not launch models in several countries as its partners pulled out. This time however, the company will offer the Z1 directly from its retail outlets.

As there are virtually no Tizen apps, the company will be offering the website versions of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. In addition to this, GSMArena said the Samsung Z1 will also be able to run Android apps if OpenMobile's Application Compatibility Layer is downloaded from the Tizen app store and installed on the phone.