Samsung Launches Z4 Smartphone Powered By Tizen OS

Samsung has launched a new Smartphone loaded up with the operating system - Z4. It has been done in order to keep its own Tizen OS alive. The handset runs the Tizen's version 3.0 and will launch in India this month itself. It will come in Black, Gold and Silver colour variants, based on the market. The Smartphone will also be showcased at the Tizen Developer Conference, scheduled for May 16-17 in San Francisco, California.

Sporting 4.5-inch WVGA (480x800 pixels resolution) display, Samsung Z4 is powered by a 1.5GHz quad-core processor paired with 1GB RAM. It features a 5MP rear camera with f/2.2 aperture and dual-LED flash, along with 5MP front-facing camera with the same aperture.

Measuring 132.9mmx69.2mmx10.3mm, the Z4 weighs 143g. It is backed by a 2,050mAh battery and supports Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, USB 2.0, GLONASS, GPS and LTE Cat 4 as major connectivity options. The Smartphone is likely to come with dual-SIM support when it launches in India.

It has been mentioned that using different combinations of physical buttons or swiping the screen, users can create shortcuts to launch different features including Quick Talk, Quick Torch, Quick Launch of camera or Quick Switch.

Also, the Smartphone's camera comes with gesture features.

Samsung to merge bada mobile OS with Intel-backed Tizen

Samsung Electronics Co said it planned to merge its 'bada' mobile software with a platform backed by chipmaker Intel Corp in its latest push to diversify away from Google's Android.

Samsung, which emerged as the world's biggest smartphone manufacturer on the back of booming Android models in the third quarter, joined forces with Intel last year to strengthen its mobile software push.

In September two Linux software groups, one backed by Samsung, and another by Intel, agreed to jointly develop Tizen, a new operating system for cellphones and other devices, by merging their LiMo and Meego platforms in a bid to gain wider industry and consumer support.

"We have an effort that will merge bada and Tizen," a Samsung spokesman confirmed senior vice president Kang Tae-jin as telling Forbes magazine.

The open-source Tizen platform supports multiple devices including smartphones, tablets, Internet-enabled TVs, netbooks and in-vehicle infotainment systems.

It would have to attract wide support from developers and manufacturers to compete with the dozen or so other mobile operating systems available in a smartphone market dominated by Google's Linux-based Android and Apple's in-house software.

Google's Android accounted for 53 percent of the global smartphone market in the third quarter and Samsung's bada platform just 2.2 percent.