Last week, Samsung officially announced its first Tizen-based smartphone, the Z1 in India. The device is priced at INR 5,700 (~ $92), a relatively higher price tag for its low-end hardware, especially when you compare it with Android value-for-money smartphones like the Xiaomi Redmi 1S and the Asus Zenfone 4. It features a 1.2GHz dual-core processor from Spreadtrum, 768MB RAM, and 4GB internal storage, but Samsung is trying to defend its pricing. The Korean giant claims that Tizen can not only run Android apps, it is also lighter than other platforms. It means that Tizen requires relatively less powerful hardware to run as smooth as other platforms.
A new video from Simrandeep Singh Garcha shows that Tizen runs quite fast and smooth on the Z1, a rarity for smartphones in a similar price range. The video shows Tizen running without any sort of lag on the Z1, as well as new features like customisable colour themes and icon sets. It appears that even things like web browsing are smooth and fast on Tizen, as seen in the second video, thanks to faster page load times as well as smooth scrolling, panning, and zooming.
Credit where credit is due: it actually looks kind of nice, which is surprising, considering its developed by Samsung. This still doesn’t take my doubt away about Tizen’s viability in the smartphone space, but I still welcome any and all competition for Android and iOS.
I can’t belive it. I watched the video and then watched again… it actually looks pretty fast. Design is average, android and iOS mashed together stripped down a bit to run on lower spec devices, but it will be enough.
If this will run android apps without problems it looks like it will be a major contenter for low spec phones.
It looks pretty nice, and can apparently run Android apps (I don’t know if it can run NDK apps, or if it’s crippled like earlier BBOS versions and can only run DEX based apps). Running Android apps didn’t help BlackBerry, though I suspect BB’s problem is a marketing one. Most people I mention BB to don’t even know they have a modern smartphone platform. Samsung does seem to understand marketing, so hey, you never know.
I’m sure Samsung knows their hardware and the open source developers from the Enlightenment project know graphics.
I think that might be the most important reason why it works so well. 🙂
Maybe I should add:
Tizen is an open source project from Intel, Samsung and others.
So this isn’t only Samsung.
Please help me to understand – what is the main motivation of big players like Samsung, to have a different OS to Android, if they have Android established and for free too?
I can think of these:
1. differentiation, not just on hardware but also software.
2. ability to get into other markets (Tizen looks more efficient on cheaper devices)
3. manufacturers and providers don’t like dominance of one platform (users shouldn’t either) – because without competition you get less improvements
4. leverage when talking to upstream – “Don’t like what we want ? Well we have our own solution now !”
Edited 2015-01-20 18:06 UTC
An other reason:
5. no Android royalties for Microsoft ?
Another thing to take account: Tizen also uses Wayland protocol via Enlightenment and systemd.
I don’t know if they use Wayland on this device, but it could be:
Windowing system
The X Window System with the Enlightenment Foundation Libraries are used.[20]
Wayland: Tizen up to 2.x supports Wayland in in-vehicle infotainment (IVI) setups[21] and from 3.0 onward defaults to Wayland.[22]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tizen#Overview
Edited 2015-01-21 10:07 UTC
Grid of icons? Check.
Ambient music? Check.
Moden color palette? Check.
Yawn? Check.
Everything about the mobile space is yawn. Wake me up when it isn’t.
I would be surprised if EFL/Enlightenment/Tizen didn’t run efficient.
They even used to be able to run really well on a Compaq iPaq in 2004:
http://www.rasterman.com/files/eem-live.avi
The Enlightenment developers, like Rasterman, have always been very good at graphics.
Wouldn’t be surprised if Tizen is the most efficient of all the modern smartphone OS’s.
Edited 2015-01-20 16:31 UTC
The title of the post is T1, the body says Z1.
Funny how everything runs smoothly when you don’t have to outsmart the JavaVM.
Yes I know about ART, but how well can it optimize code when converting it from dalvik to native, considering it’s running on a mobile SoC and the user can’t wait forever for the app to install?
Edited 2015-01-20 18:10 UTC
I don’t know, I can clearly see that there is lag:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-JIrjNqldf4#t=139
http://gifyoutube.com/gif/yxxDab