Samsung Z's Tizen UI caught in action: Samsung rips off own TouchWiz for new OS

Earlier in the week we had reported the Samsung Z going official and becoming the first Tizen device on the market. It’s expected to come to other countries later this year after an initial launch in Russia.   Samsung’s Tizen-based Samsung Z boasts a 4.8-inch HD (720p) Super AMOLED display, which sounds to us to be the same one used in the Galaxy S3. The smartphone comes with 2.3 GHz quad-core processor, though we will hear more about the graphics side of things at the event soon. But the one thing we don’t know much about is how the Tizen UI looks and functions.   We finally have a video of a Samsung Z prototype being demoed by thehandheldblog.com. The UI shown is very different as compared to the other Android powered Samsung phones. The smartphone supports multiple home screens making it easier to navigate through the phone without the need of tapping on to specific icons for certain commands. See the full video to know more.  

  The pull-down notification is nothing new as it has previously been seen on almost all of Samsung’s Android powered smartphones. Also like Android, you can make multiple changes not only to the UI but also to the way you unlock your phone. The smartphone hosts a list of 8 applications which are default or system apps and are available out-of-the-box. Samsung has retained some of the apps like S-health that they have earlier provided for their mid-range and high-end smartphones.   Samsung has retained some of the older functions like the long press of the home button for multi-tasking or opening the system monitor. The web browser is quite basic looking allowing you to save pages and access bookmarks, home page, speed dial and history quickly. The contact UI is more or less the same as the Samsung’s Android-powered phones. As for the UI of the camera and the music player, this too remains very similar to the Samsung Galaxy S5 which features image recognition in the gallery and music sorting functions.   The Samsung Z hosts an 8MP camera on the back, and a 2.1MP front camera which also feature many presets seen in Samsung’s Android phones such as Mini mode, Quick shot, Best Photo, Drama Shot and Panorama mode. The smartphone sports 2GB RAM with an internal memory of 16GB which is expandable up to 64GB through the microSD slot.   It is safe to say that for practiced Samsung users, the Tizen platform will not present a high learning curve on the Samsung Z.