Samsung Z1

Available now
14th January 2015

The Samsung Z1 will be Samsung's first Tizen smartphone, following on from last year's failed launch of the Samsung Z. Heading for India only at the moment, the Z1 is a modestly specified device slated to retail at INR 5700 which is the equivalent of just €78.

For this not very large amount of money you will get a device with a 4" 480 x 800 pixel display, a 3.1 megapixel primary camera and an 0.3 megapixel secondary one, a 1.2GHz dual-core CPU with 768MB of RAM and 4GB of onboard storage plus a microSD slot. The Samsung Z1 supports HSDPA data and WiFi connectivity, has Bluetooth 4.1, GPS and an accelerometer.. so it certainly covers all the basics for a modern smartphone. In addition, the Z1 has dual-SIM support which is very handy.

The operating system is Tizen 2.3 which Samsung says has much smaller system requirements than rivals. It is not clear what applications will be available, but it does come with antivirus and security software preinstalled along with access to a wide range of music and video material.

Available colours are black, white and red and the Z1 is available on both Aircel and Reliance Communications with a 500MB introductory data bundle included. There's no word on when or if the Z1 or any other Tizen smartphone will be available in other markets, we suspect that India is a testbed for Samsung to see if consumers are actually interested.