First Samsung Tizen smartphone spotted

Samsung has made no secret that it is working hard on a Tizen-powered smartphone, which would let the company break away from Google’s Android operating system, but if a new leaked press photo is authentic we could be getting very close to an official launch.

The image, posted to Korean news site moveplayer, shows an unannounced Samsung smartphone, listed as the ZEQ9000, displaying what is thought to be the Tizen homescreen. It has a grid-based layout, with large, medium and small tiles in a similar fashion to Microsoft’s Windows Phone 8 OS. Fonts and icons look almost identical to Samsung’s TouchWiz Android overlay, while a homescreen indicator icon suggests there will be at least five separate homescreens.

Based on what we’ve seen, it appears that Tizen may be functionally very similar to Android, even with its visual differences such as the centrally-aligned status bar.

The handset itself isn’t exactly a break from the norm for Samsung – it has a very similar appearance to 2012’s Galaxy S3. According to the leak, it will have a 4.8in, 1,280×720 resolution display and be powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, making it very powerful compared to current mid-range handsets. It has at least one physical button, but the leaked image doesn’t show a back or multitasking button. These could of course be backlit, as with the Galaxy S4 and Galaxy Note 3.

Despite Japanese mobile operator NTT DoCoMo delaying its first Tizen handset earlier this month, we may not have long to wait until we get the first official look at a Tizen smartphone – Mobile World Congress is only a few weeks away. We’ll be there to bring you the news as it breaks, so if you’re about to buy a new smartphone you may want to hold off a little longer to see what else is coming soon.