Gadgetory

hey everyone I'm Jessica Volpert from C net here as a Tizen developer conference in San Francisco we're in a Hilton hotel I'm getting my very first look at the samsung Z this is a new Tizen based phone that Samsung just announced is not running Android but it looks a little bit similar to Android you'll definitely notice you've got the weather widget up front and a bunch of home screens they only take up the first roughly two thirds of the screen you can swipe to move around the home screens do have widgets although Samsung is calling these dynamic boxes really they're the same and they are resized on the bottom portion of the screen you see some static apps these are commonly used apps such as the dialer contacts messenger camera App Store and the browser folders are supported as well when you swipe up that's where you see your app tray so it's a little bit of a different layout but we are seeing some of the rounded icons we've also seen in phones like the Samsung Galaxy s5 Samsung has installed all of it to own apps on here for example you've got s health s voice and as translator Samsung link and watch on for the TV remote so the phone does come with an IR blaster you also see a bunch of commonly used apps like Twitter and Google search zone is going to be released in Russia first you're going to find that search on the home screen and also maps are powered by Yandex which is popular in Russia the settings menu look very similar to what you get in the Samsung Galaxy s5 so there will be familiarity for people who know that device you definitely have Wi-Fi the same download booster data usage some display and wallpaper options safety assistance power saving mode ultra power saving mode you get it it's very similar to the s5 now the samsung C also has the same fingerprint scanner that you see in the galaxy s5 and the same heart rate monitor on the back to use the fingerprint scanner you'll simply swipe your finger over the home button on the front and to use the heart rate monitor on the back you'll fire up as health and place your finger on the sensor now let's talk a little bit about the phone design itself one of the first things I noticed is that it felt very light 136 grams which is about four point eight ounces the phone is pretty slim as well it comes in two colors black and gold but they only have the black version here you'll notice if you look carefully there seems faux stitching along the sides that's the same thing that we see in the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 it also has a leather like appearance but it's not made of leather it does have sort of a grippy surface though so it feels nice to hold in the hand the Z has a flat top and a flat bottom there's a little bit of angling here but it looks pretty cool and there are some silvery accents along the sides around the rim and around the home button the screen size is four point eight inches it is a 720p HD super amoled display colors look bright lettering looks pretty crisp but it isn't the highest resolution that's possible inside you've got a 2.3 gigahertz Qualcomm Snapdragon quad-core processor there is a 2.1 megapixel camera on the front and an 8 megapixel camera on the back with flash when you snap open the camera you'll notice that a lot of the modes and the layout are very similar again to what you're going to find in Samsung Galaxy phones this is Samsung trying to maintain its brand that's very beneficial to people who aren't familiar with Tizen so you have a lot of the same camera modes like Beauty face best photo and brought your HDR mode panorama and even photos that you can take with both the front-facing and rear-facing camera simultaneously this is called dual shot the Tizen app store is a work in progress you do have featured apps top apps paid and free you don't see a lot of really popular titles worldwide for example there isn't Facebook but you do have Twitter pre-loaded on the phone this could be something that Samsung and Tizen are going to work on with developers as a platform continues to grow however for now it's a little bit bare bones the Samsung Z is going to be launching in Russia first and expanding to other markets after that I've dealt with all christina and you can read much more about the samsung z at cnn.com