Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

With the release of Tizen , Samsung now has two smartphone interface designs under its belt. The company's other creation is TouchWiz, the skin that ships with all of its Android phones. But for the most part, Samsung has to color inside of Google's lines there. What does Samsung do when it's in the driver's seat? Does it stick with Android convention, copy iOS, or go off on its own path? To find out, we lined up Tizen, TouchWiz, and stock Android to see what patterns stuck out, giving you the gallery above.

The biggest aesthetic difference between Tizen and the other OS designs is Tizen's theming system—you can change the primary highlight color to whatever you want. While everything you see above is the default blue, you could change it to green, or pink, or black.

Other than that, Tizen largely feels like "TouchWiz: the Operating System"—most of the apps track pretty closely to what Samsung ships on top of Android. The apps on Tizen all feel a little dumbed-down, though. Compared to Android (stock or TouchWiz), Tizen usually has fewer options, controls, and less information. Options and commands are also difficult to discover since many of them are hidden behind a hardware menu button. And resolution isn't an excuse; Android will happily run at 480p with the same layout you see above.

It's a shame that Tizen didn't try to do anything different. In the world of ecosystem-based smartphones, if you aren't different, you aren't giving anyone a reason to choose your operating system. For more on Tizen, check out our full review.