Earlier today, a Tizen device bearing a model number SM-Z9005 was ousted by @evleaks. Along with the leak, a press render of the alleged SM-Z9005 was also leaked. While no official launch date is available for the device, it has been confirmed that Samsung will showcase a few Tizen devices at the Mobile World Congress next month.
Originally, Samsung was set to launch Tizen devices last year, but it was revealed in October that a Tizen device would not be forthcoming until later this year. NTT DoCoMo was set to be one of the first carriers to sell the Tizen device, but a statement in December stated that the carrier was not ready to launch devices running new and untested OSes.
It is now theorised that the delay with Tizen could be in a large factor due to Samsung’s rivalry with Qualcomm. Qualcomm has a huge lead in the mobile SoC market, and it is the only manufacturer on the market that has LTE in-built in its SoC offerings. It is no wonder, then, that Samsung utilises Qualcomm hardware in its high-end Galaxy handsets for LTE markets.
However, all that might change this year as Intel looks ready to debut its LTE-enabled Merrifield SoC. Intel is one of the main contributors to the Tizen Association, which has over 36 members. Merrifield is based on Intel’s Silvermont architecture, and mobile devices running this SoC are set to be debuted at the MWC. The SM-Z9005 device was originally rumored to come with Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 800 SoC, but that might not be feasible as Qualcomm is one of Intel’s main rivals in this segment.
However, if the Tizen device were to feature Intel’s Merrifield SoC, it could be further delayed, and might not launch until Q2 2014. Whatever the case might be, Samsung is set to officially unveil its first Tizen devices on February 23rd at the MWC, so we should have more details then.
