Samsung’s Z1 successor has been leaked with our own Z3 exclusive, and we’ve even seen one in the wild, which seems to indicate that Samsung is looking to get the Z3 out to the public sometime soon. We’ve even heard whispers that the Z3 would be announced at the Tizen Developer Summit this month, but a new document points out what could help us put the pieces together.
A Samsung shipment of 1,400 boxes for a unit with the model number SM-Z300H are headed for South Korea, and over 1,200 devices bearing the same model number have been requested for a “partnering event purpose & not for retail sale,” according to the inventory list discovered at Zauba. Last but not least, 55 smartphones with the SM-Z300H model number have been requested “for R&D purposes & evaluation,” and are found on the same inventory list. The conclusion? Samsung intends to give away some R&D units for developers at its upcoming Tizen Developer Summit.
While we do think Samsung intends to give away its Tizen-powered Z3 to developers, there seems to be a few smartphone units missing (if they all will be given away to developers). Samsung’s got 1,400 boxes coming but only a few over 1,200 smartphones being ordered in this shipment. Either Samsung intends to order more in the coming days, or the company’s already ordered them and are simply fulfilling their demands for these last shipments. The latest date on the inventory is July 15th, which shows that these shipments are recent and most likely up to date.
The “partnering event” is the description in question that seems puzzling. Samsung also says that these same partnering units are “not for retail sale,” so these are clearly giveaways – but to whom? Who is the company or group with which Samsung is partnering at the Tizen Developer Summit? What we know at the moment is that, in addition to developers, Samsung is encouraging “platform designers, ISVs, OEMs, open source enthusiasts, and anyone who wants to learn more about Tizen,” Tizen Experts says.
It seems that Samsung is getting serious about getting manufacturers and software designers ready for its platform to go mainstream. The Tizen Developer Summit’s meeting place in Bengaluru, India, is a fitting place for it, seeing that at least 50% of the apps in the Tizen Store have been developed by India developers. The Samsung Z1 smartphone has sold over 1 million units since its launch, and Samsung’s giving all its energy to see to it that the Z3 will sell the next million or two.
The Samsung Z3 will run Tizen 3.0 and feature a 2MP front camera, 5MP back camera, a SpreadTrum quad-core processor, and 5-inch HD Super AMOLED display, a 1.3GHz quad-core Spreadtrum SC7730S processor, 1.5GB of RAM, and 8GB of internal storage.
