Since its launch in India in January this year at just Rs. 5700, Samsung India claims to have sold more than one million units of Samsung Z1 smartphone running on Tizen OS. According to Samsung, the Z1 was designed to appeal to the millions of feature phone users in India while addressing their need for an easy to use Smartphone. Samsung has thus been able to reach this milestone in less than six months from launch in the highly competitive entry-level smartphone segment.
The software and user interface of the Tizen platform has been developed at Samsung’s Bangalore R&D lab, and the Z1 smartphones are manufactured in the Noida facility of Samsung. Built on the Tizen platform that also powers products like Samsung televisions, cameras, and Samsung wearable devices, the Samsung Z1 delivers a faster boot time and enhanced web performance to offer users faster page loading times with decreased data usage.
The Samsung Z1 runs on Samsung’s Tizen 2.3 OS. For emergency situation, this smartphone is packed with SOS alert feature, which is quick and simple to use – with just a press of the power button four times, the Samsung Z1 will send out ‘Help’ message to the user’s primary contacts and track the user’s location to provide necessary assistance.
The Samsung Z1 sports a 4 inch WVGA PLS screen, and is powered by a 1.2GHz dual-core processor, 768 MB RAM and 4GB internal memory expandable up to 64GB with a microSD card. This smartphone supports dual SIM support and is fuelled by 1500mAh battery, which is claimed to provide 7 hours of non-stop videos and 8 hours of talk time. The battery life has been further enhanced with the unique ‘Ultra Power Saving Mode’ which lets the phone remain operational in important situations, even at minimal battery levels.
The Z1 is equipped with a 3.1 megapixel rear camera that is claimed to allow high quality shots even in low light settings and a VGA front camera with an auto face detect feature to easily capture more natural selfies.
Mr. Asim Warsi, Vice-President-Marketing, Mobile and IT, Samsung India, said, “Our insights have shown that consumers hesitate to move beyond the familiar basic and simple interaction with their mobile devices. Keeping this in mind, Samsung Z1 features an easy to use UI that offers a smooth and fast experience to ensure a seamless migration to smartphones. Samsung Z1 combines a great feature set along with a rapidly growing app ecosystem to offer consumers a differentiated Smartphone experience. We are happy to see the response the device has received and will continue to grow the range for Tizen- powered smartphones.”
