Solana Labs, the company behind the Solana blockchain, has announced the upcoming public sale of its new crypto-focused smartphone, Saga. The device is set to hit the market on May 8th and has already begun shipping to pre-order customers. With a price tag of $1,000, the Saga smartphone is built on hardware from Bay Area smartphone company OSOM and boasts an impressive 512 GB of storage, a 6.67-inch OLED display, and a fingerprint scanner.
What sets the Saga apart from other smartphones is its Solana Mobile Stack (SMS), a lineup of custom add-ons that integrate crypto usefulness into the phone’s hardware and software. The device has ingrained security features to provide for sending, receiving, trading, and storing crypto, making it a dedicated crypto hardware wallet. Saga’s secure element is customized with a “seed vault” that stores a crypto user’s private keys, which Solana says makes them more secure by keeping them separate from the rest of the phone’s data.
Additionally, the Saga smartphone has a custom “dapp” store that only lists crypto applications. Currently, there are over one dozen applications covering crypto trading, inter-wallet communications, music, and digital collectibles available for download, with more expected over time. Solana says it won’t impose “extractive fees” on dapp store apps, a dig at the 30% tax Apple and Google charge on their respective storefronts.
The Saga smartphone is a gamble on mobile being imperative to the future of crypto, according to employees at Solana-focused companies. It was nearly 10 months ago that Solana first teased the radical potential of a cellphone that doubles as a dedicated crypto hardware wallet, and the possibilities such a product could hold for its entire ecosystem.
While other phone makers, from the big – HTC – to the small – Sirin Labs, have previously failed in their efforts to create a crypto-forward smartphone, Solana is optimistic about the Saga’s prospects, despite being built for and marketed to a single crypto ecosystem. It remains to be seen whether the Saga will be a hit with consumers or suffer the same fate as other crypto-focused smartphones.
Source: https://azcoinnews.com/solana-labs-to-release-saga-its-crypto-focused-smartphone-to-the-public-on-may-8th.html
