[Feedback] Tizen OS vs Sailfish OS

asked 2015-02-08 00:58:36 +0300

This post is a wiki. Anyone with karma >75 is welcome to improve it.

updated 2015-02-08 21:07:08 +0300

sifartech
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Samsung finally launched a Tizen OS phone in India, and I bought one to compare with my Jolla Smartphone. These are my first impressions on the OS -

Usability -
Sailfish OS is better (despite the learning curve)

The Tizen OS interface on the Z1, at first glance, looks like Android's. But Samsung has tweaked it a bit and divided the screen into two parts. In the home screen, the first half holds the Widgets (Calendar, contacts, alarms, FM, music etc.), and the bottom half holds 2 rows of app icons (which you can change to whatever app you use most). If you add more than one widget you can scroll the top half of the screen to the left or the right to view them. To see all the other installed apps, you flick up, like in Sailfish. When you flick up, the two rows of icons that were at the bottom in the Home screen now appear on top as the first two rows. In this view, the first two rows then stay stationery, and the bottom half of the screen display all the other apps icons. And if there are more icons then can be shown, you can again scroll to the left or the right to view them.

It does add a cool factor to the UI (as it is something different) and is intuitively easier to learn then Sailfish.

But then you open any app, and you have to interact with it like any android app - clicking the back button, or home button or menu button - or if you want to switch apps or go to the home screen, and you realize how much better Sailfish is. Overall, Sailfish OS makes it easier to do things faster. (And with one hand too - with the Z1 I occasionally had to use both hands to do things faster, and to reduce the strain on my fingers.)

Performance -
Tizen OS is better.

All the reviews of Z1 cribbed about the poor hardware (1.2 Ghz of a cheap chinese processor, 768 MB RAM etc.) Samsung settled on. But Tizen performs AMAZINGLY on it. Every interaction is fluidly smooth and effortless. Youtube videos play well (through the youtube app) without hiccuping at all. The browser too doesn't seem to slow down the system. Opening many apps doesn't seem to make the system sluggish at all. So personally, I felt that Tizen OS is a tad bit faster and smoother than Sailfish.

Privacy -
Jolla is currently on the right track and way, way better than Samsung.

I went through the terms and conditions and privacy policy that you have to agree to create and activate your Samsung account and use it with the Tizen store - Samsung makes it very clear that the data they collect from various apps / services will also be transferred to their "Ad Hub" to better serve you more "relevant" content (read ads). They also mention that some services record audio and video, and some may transfer urls and search terms and all these too may be used by them. They even give you an (thankfully optional) option "to combine data from various services" to receive more "personalized" content. So +1 to Jolla for not going that route (yet).

Tizen OS however offers more transparent options to protect user data than Sailfish OS.

Every app in the Tizen store clearly mention how they'll interact with the hardware (access to microphone, storage, internet etc.) and your data (Contacts, messages etc.) before installation. Apart from this, Tizen OS Settings includes more options under 'Privacy' where it allows you to individually define which apps can access your Calendar data, Call log, Contacts, Locations and, Messages. This is a feature that Sailfish sorely lacks, and needs to implements so that we, the user, continue to remain in control of our personal data.

Apart from this, Tizen OS also seems to have a "private mode" using which you can hide any particular files that you don't want someone to easily find and access.

Apps / Apps Store / Android Compatibility
Sailfish is less restrictive; Tizen has better Android support (because of Samsung $$$)

Both OS do offer "Android Compatibility" and you have to "enable" the same by installing the "Addon / Layer" through the respective store. And both the Jolla store and the Tizen Store have native and some handpicked Android apps. However, the Jolla Store does a better job of distinguishing between the two - Android apps are marked with the droid logo. The Tizen store doesn't do this, and you have to read the description to find out whether it is a native app or an Android app. Even if it is an Android app, the description doesn't often outright says it and just mentions that the app is an "ACL enabled app" (ACL - Application Compatibility Layer - is the "android layer" for Tizen OS). The Tizen store is better organized though with "Categories".

Jolla allows me to install Android apps from outside the Jolla store too, but the Samsung Z1 seems more restrictive and I haven't yet explored how to install apps downloaded from other stores / sources. (As such, I can't comment on the performance of the android apps as I haven't yet installed any Android app on my Tizen phone.)

Since Samsung has more money, it is obvious that the default native apps - Memo, Music, Video, Email, Browser etc. - are more feature rich than the Jolla Sailfish apps for the same.

Tizen OS also supports HTML5 based native app. (The Youtube app in Tizen OS seems to be one such app that loads the mobile version of Youtube in it.)

(This is a wiki - if you too have used Tizen OS, please consider adding your experience vis a vis Sailfish here. Please do not start comparing the phone hardware and stick to the operating system only.)

(This review on Tizen OS is a bit biased and seems to be written by an Android fanboy. Having used both Sailfish and Tizen, I can confidently say that both can outperform Android OS. The native apps of Tizen and Sailfish are / can also be superior to those of Android, and run faster.)