High-end Samsung Tizen smartphone coming in August or September

Samsung has shared a little more about its plans to release smartphones running the Tizen operating system this year. In an interview with Bloomberg, executive vice president of mobile Lee Young-hee said that a high-end Tizen phone will be released in August or September. While we’ve heard that Samsung will release multiple Tizen devices in 2013, Lee only mentioned a single, flagship product. Bloomberg reports that the device will be one of “at least three” premium smartphones launched by Samsung this year, the other two being the Galaxy S4 and a new Galaxy Note.

Lee calling out the phone as a high-end device is particularly notable. With Tizen’s roots in previous operating systems such as Bada and MeeGo, many had expected Samsung to use the OS for low- to mid-range devices; the Tizen reference phone we saw at Mobile World Congress 2013 was reminiscent of a Galaxy S II. There were also indications that Samsung would eschew Firefox OS for Tizen in its budget range. However, according to Lee the upcoming phone will be “the best product equipped with the best specifications.” We’ll have to wait and see exactly how that will stack up against the Galaxy S4, which Samsung just announced as its premium Android phone.