We all know that Samsung isn't afraid to experiment, and CNBC is reporting that its next experiment will be a smartphone "in the $100 price range" running the Tizen operating system. The phone would be launched first in India, positioned as an inexpensive "first smartphone" to convert more of the country's feature phone users.

Other various leaks and screenshots floating around (collected here by GigaOm) peg this phone as the "Samsung Z1," a 4-inch 800×480 smartphone that pairs Samsung's smartphone design with the low-end specs you'd expect to find in a $100 phone. This includes a "1.2GHz dual-core" processor, likely either an older Samsung Exynos chip or a low-end product from Qualcomm, MediaTek, or RockChip. It's also said to come with 768MB of RAM, 4GB of internal storage expandable via MicroSD, a 3MP rear-facing camera, and basic Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity. The leaks point to a January launch for the phone.

Samsung uses Tizen on all of its Galaxy Gear watches (the Android Wear-running Gear Live excepted), but its efforts to put it on a phone have come in fits and starts. The company announced the midrange Samsung Z this summer only to delay and then cancel it. We managed to go hands-on with the Tizen software at Mobile World Congress back in February, and we found it to be "an impressively capable Android clone." The OS appears to get most of the basic smartphone stuff right, and Samsung's Android phones all come with a full suite of Samsung apps—the company has demonstrated that it can live without Google's apps if it has to.

The problem, as with any new or niche mobile operating system, will be apps and third-party support. Companies selling low-cost, Google-blessed Android One phones, and companies like Xiaomi that are pushing high-end Android phones at lower-than-normal prices, will be squeezing this hypothetical Tizen offering from both sides.