Amidst all of the MWC 2014 madness that will see major releases from all of the big players such as Nokia, Samsung, and LG among others, there will be some of the other smaller players such as ZTE of China. Granted, China is the country with the world’s largest population of over 1 billion easily, and if you were to control just a small percentage of the local market alone, it would be easy to say that you have it made to live a comfortable life for the rest of your days on earth. The thing is, there are always new horizons to conquer, and it seems that the ZTE Geek with Tizen OS has been rumored to arrive at MWC 2014.
ZTE Geek with Tizen: A Background Story
Every story has a beginning, and so too, does the ZTE Geek with Tizen. Let us take a look at the smartphone itself – the ZTE Geek was originally spotted over at IDF (Intel Developers Conference) Beijing last year, where it was announced at the conference itself. The ZTE Geek was the first smartphone from ZTE that runs on Intel’s new (back then) 32nm Atom Z2580 processor. That was a 2.0GHz Clover Trail+ processor which is touted to deliver double the speed for computing and triple the speed when it comes to graphics.
Apart from that, it is also touted to sip less juice compared to Intel’s previous processor. Underneath the hood of the first ZTE Geek, it ran on Android Jelly Bean, while carrying a 5” High Definition Display at 1280 x 720 resolution, accompanied by 8GB of internal memory, 1GB RAM and a 2,300 mAh large-capacity battery. Located at the back is an 8 megapixel camera with an LED flash, while in front you would find a 1-megapixel camera. So how does the Tizen OS-powered ZTE Geek fit into the story?
ZTE Geek with Tizen – New Wine In An Old Wineskin?
Earlier last month, we did bring you word that the ZTE Geek might be revived at MWC 2014 after checking out an unconfirmed report that was published in Greece. Apparently, the Android mobile operating system would be ditched in this case, where Tizen is expected to replace it, hence the whole point of this rumor round up.
This alleged Tizen-powered device is touted to be shown off at the Tizen Association booth, where there is a possibility of an app challenge taking place. This could very well be done to lure developers to create apps for the Tizen platform. Just a little bit of background information here – Tizen happens to be a smartphone platform which was developed partly by the folks over at Samsung, although you would see that Samsung has concentrated mostly on Android with a wee bit of interest in Windows Phone, not to mention dabble with badaOS for a little while, too.
Tizen is touted to be an alternative to iOS, Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone. How does Tizen measure up against the other major players in the smartphone operating system market? We do not really know, since it has yet to be established, and there are also the questions raised about whether Tizen will have the kind of app support it needs from developers in order to be successful. All we can say is, it will be an uphill battle for Tizen.
We do expect the hardware specifications for the rumored ZTE Geek with Tizen to remain pretty much the same, although we would not be surprised at all if the hardware was given a bit of refresh in order to keep up with the times. All we can say is, stay tuned as our roving editorial team sniffs out all about the ZTE Geek with Tizen when we make our way to Barcelona for this year’s edition of Mobile World Congress.