Samsung To Release High-End Tizen Handset In August Or September

We've heard this before, but it has now been confirmed – Samsung will be releasing a Tizen-based smartphone this year. The information comes from Samsung's Executive Vice President of its mobile business, who offered the information in Seoul earlier this week. The handset will be very high-end, according to his statement.

Said Samsung's Lee Young Hee, "The Tizen phone will be out in August or September, and this will be in the high-end category. The device will be the best product equipped with the best specifications." Unfortunately, no other details were dropped about the handset, such as what these "best specifications" will be.

This comes at a time when Samsung has seen a huge increase in handset sales, the vast majority of which run the Android mobile operating system. The move to launch a Tizen-based handset will be a step towards reducing its reliance on the Google OS and will provide consumers with another option.

We saw various Tizen rumors crop up throughout 2012, with some going back as far as May, such as the Tizen handset caught on camera that is believed to be a Samsung device (pictured above). In September, we reported that rumor had it Samsung would be releasing a Tizen-based Galaxy smartphone, and then in December sources claimed that a Samsung Tizen device would be arriving in 2013 with Vodafone and DoCoMo.

[via Bloomberg]