Samsung Z3 Tizen news: Passes through FCC, indicating imminent release

Samsung's new Tizen powered smartphone, the Samsung Z3, has been spotted passing through the FCC (Federal Communication Commission), indicating that its launch could be just around the corner.

Samsung has already released a number of flagship devices this year, including the Galaxy S6 line of smartphones and the Galaxy Note 5 phablet. The South Korean company is now preparing to launch its new budget handset running on its own Tizen operating system.

The Samsung Z3 Tizen smartphone has passed through the FCC, indicating its imminent release (Reuters)

Samsung had earlier launched the Samsung Z1 smartphone running on Tizen that received a tremendous response in the emerging countries, such as India and Bangladesh. The company is skipping the Z2 model and directly launching its successor, the Samsung Z3, which will run on the latest version of its Tizen operating system.

Latest reports claim that the Samsung Z3 will feature better specifications than its predecessor. According to previous speculations, the Samsung Z3 will feature a 5-inch Super AMOLED capacitive touchscreen display with HD (720p) resolution, as compared to a 4 inch screen in the Samsung Z1 handset.

The Samsung Z3 will be powered by a 1.3GHz quad-core Spreadtrum SC7730S processor, paired with 1.5GB of RAM. The Tizen powered handset will offer 8GB of on-board storage, which can be further expanded up to 32 GB via a microSD card. The Samsung Z3 will sport an improved 8 megapixel rear camera with autofocus, LED flash and video recording capabilities, along with a 5 megapixel front facing camera for selfies and video chats. The dual-SIM Samsung Z3 will pack a 2,600 mAh battery and ship with Tizen 3.0 operating system out of the box.

The Samsung Z3 has now been spotted on the FCC, confirming its previous rumored specifications. Samsung is expected to release its new Tizen powered Z3 smartphone in Bangladesh, India and Nepal, followed by the emerging markets in the European region.

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Samsung has shown it’s serious about Tizen, but is it yet ‘The OS of Everything’?

Samsung hasn’t had an easy start with its Android-replacement operating system Tizen, though by now many more tech consumers should have at least heard of its name — and may perhaps have even used it without realizing.

Tizen — which like Android is based on the Linux kernel — has been powering a few of Samsung’s devices for a while now, though far less so on the smartphone front than on the wearables front.

Above: Flickr / Kārlis Dambrāns

If you thought Android was in fact powering Samsung’s line of Gear smartwatches, you’d be mistaken. It’s been Tizen all along — well, pretty much. But efforts to get Tizen ready as a fully fledged replacement to Android on its smartphones have been much slower. (Samsung’s Z is still its only Tizen phone to date.)

Now, with the announcement of the Samsung Gear S2 smartwatch Monday, Tizen looks as though it’s starting to mature a little, and perhaps even become a more viable contender to Google’s Android Wear — at least for Samsung’s own lines of wearables.

But it still seems highly unlikely that any other smartwatch player with skin in the game would adopt Tizen in 2015. In fact, both Huawei (with its well-received Huawei Watch) and Motorola (with its new Moto 360 models) just took the wraps off their latest smartwatches, and — surprise, surprise — both are powered by Android Wear.

Above: Samsung’s Gear S2 smartwatch

In addition to its smartwatches and — perhaps increasingly — its smartphones, Samsung has been slapping Tizen on its TVs as well. It announced at CES in January that all of its new TVs will now be powered by the OS.

And interestingly, Tizen has recently overtaken Firefox as the fifth largest smartphone OS by volume in Q2. But whether its new Gear S2 smartwatch can steal any sizeable market share from the likes of Apple and the barrage of Android Wear competitors remains to be seen.

So: Tizen, the OS of everything (see the main picture up top)? No. Tizen, the slowly-maturing OS of one of wearables’ biggest players? Possibly.

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