The Samsung Z4 is Tizen’s new flagship smartphone

Next week, most of the tech press will be focused on Google I/O 2017, Google's big developer conference. But Samsung just happens to be holding its own competing conference at the same time: the Tizen Developer Conference 2017. Here, developers will (supposedly) gather to talk about the latest Tizen OS improvements and development practices. To celebrate, Samsung announced a new flagship Tizen smartphone today, the Samsung Z4.

While Samsung uses Google's Android OS in nearly all of its smartphones, the company has been building a Linux-based OS of its own, called Tizen, for some time now. Tizen runs on Samsung's smartwatches, fitness devices, TVs, smart appliances, and a tiny handful of smartphones. We reviewed the first-ever Tizen smartphone, the Samsung Z1, back in 2015, and we weren't impressed. It felt like a hollow copy of Android without any apps, so why not just run Android? Tizen is apparently not very secure, either, with a security researcher saying, "It may be the worst code I've ever seen," and "Everything you can do wrong there, they do it." A WikiLeaks data dump even claimed that the CIA can turn Samsung's (Tizen-based) smart TVs into remote listening devices.

Samsung continues to plug away at its operating system, though, and the most interesting part of the Samsung Z4 may be that it launches with Tizen 3.0, a brand-new version of the OS. Tizen 3.0 comes with support for the new "Vulkan" graphics API, a switch from the X Window System to Wayland (Tizen is really Linux-based), 64-bit support, multi-user support, Samsung's S-Voice voice assistant, and tons of other features. Despite the recent news, Samsung's Tizen 3.0 page claims, "Security has been one of Tizen’s major strengths." It then goes on to describe a "new security model" in 3.0 that will make managing security policies easier, plus a new privacy guard.

As the name suggests, the Z4 is the fourth major Tizen phone. But it doesn't seem like Tizen hardware has progressed much since our last review. The Z4 is still an unattractive budget phone, that, like past Tizen models, will probably retail for around $100. It has a 4.5-inch, 800×480 display, an unspecified "Quad core 1.5GHz" processor, 1GB of RAM, 5MP front and rear camera, "USB 2.0" (we're guessing MicroUSB), and a 2050mAh battery. These would definitely not be "flagship" specs for an established operating system, but, for Tizen, bottom-of-the-barrel $100 phones are all Samsung is willing to commit.

Samsung says the Z4 will launch in "select countries, starting in India" sometime this month. It will also be on display at the Tizen Developer Conference, which runs May 16-17.