The Samsung Z, a flagship smartphone powered by Samsung’s new Tizen operating system, has reportedly been scrapped for good after missing its scheduled release in Russia last month. Tizen phones are still a part of Samsung’s plans, according to sources familiar with the matter — but it will only be powering budget smartphones.

We’ve been expecting Samsung’s first Tizen smartphone for the past 18 months, but when the promised Samsung Z missed its release in Russia last month due to a lack of support from third-party developers, the platform’s future looked bleak. Sources for Tizen Experts claim that Tizen is still a part of Samsung’s plans, but the Samsung Z is not.

“Samsung are cancelling [sic] ANY release plans for the Samsung Z, and are concentrating their efforts on budget low to medium end smartphone’s [sic],” the report reads. “Samsung hope that this new strategy will help fend off challenges from Chinese manufacturers like Xiaomi.”

If Tizen takes off on budget devices and the support from third-party developers increases, then maybe we’ll see high-end Tizen smartphones from Samsung in the future — but that seems unlikely at this point. Not only are developers said to be concerned with the platform’s slow rollout, but also the fact that Samsung still has no product roadmap for Tizen devices.

Furthermore, Samsung already offers a whole array of affordable smartphones built for emerging markets — as do other handset makers — and they’re all powered by Android. It seems the only people who would choose Tizen devices over these, then, are those who are concerned with app support anyway.

We expect Samsung to give us an update on where it’s at with its first Tizen devices at the Tizen Developer Summit in Shanghai in October, but for now, you might as well cross that Samsung Z off your shopping list.

 

• SourceTizen Experts