A $1,000 Web3 smartphone: Solana Saga phone review
Solana Labs announced on May 9 that the Saga Web3 phone is officially available to the public, with pre-orders already shipping to the US, Canada, EU, UK, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand. frankly, the SolanaSaga is not the first crypto smartphone to hit the market, but the choice to launch during a market downturn is certainly courageous.
As the mainstream market begins to increasingly embrace Web3, one wonders: can this phone help attract the "next billion users", can it become a niche product for crypto enthusiasts, or more to the point: is it worth spending $1,000 on this phone?
Technical Indicator Analysis
The first thing you can be sure of is that the SolanaSagaWeb3 phone has technical specifications comparable to other phones in its price range, built by smartphone startup OSOM with 512 GB of RAM, 12 GB of RAM and a Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 processor.
The Saga is very responsive and fast in use, and seamlessly jumps between different applications feeling smooth. in addition, the phone's photo function also performs well, and the single battery life can be more than 1 day, which basically can kill all Android phones before 2019.
However, the Saga still has a little distance to go compared to some Android phones in the same price range, such as Google's flagship phone GooglePixelPro, which retails for $1,099, comes with 512 GB of RAM and has the same RAM as the Saga, but with a higher screen resolution. in addition, the GooglePixelPro has an extra ultra-wide angle and telephoto lens compared to the Saga's dual-lens ultra-wide angle lens.
Of course if you're not a photography enthusiast, the Saga's photo shooting capabilities are perfectly adequate for everyday needs, and as a powerful enough phone to provide a similar experience to the top devices on the market (often at a lower price).
Security Analysis
It should be noted that the Saga is not just a high-end smartphone, but its real selling point is a "Web3 smartphone".
A library of mnemonics is built into every Saga device, a secure way to store mnemonics or master passwords in an encrypted wallet. According to Solana Labs subsidiary Solana Mobile, the mnemonics in Saga phones are not based on the Android operating system, but are stored independently, and any application that prompts the user to authorize a transaction needs to go through the gating software.
In fact, securely storing mnemonics has always been a pain point for Web3 users, and there are a variety of solutions on the market, including fingerprint scanning, personal identification codes, and manually writing down 24 words on a piece of paper. for Web3 novices, these solutions are indeed confusing, but on the Saga phone, security is trustworthy.
Another major selling point for Saga Mobile is the dApp Store, a decentralized application marketplace that will likely be the ultimate competitor to Apple or Google, because the biggest difference with those tech giants is that Solana Mobile does not take a cut of developers' sales or charge commissions on applications sold on its marketplace. having an open dApp application store is perhaps the main reason that more people are choosing Solana SagaWeb3 Mobile.
However, there were only 21 dApps available for download in the app store on Saga's cell phone during the evaluation period, a number that is clearly not attractive enough for those who "live and breathe" cryptocurrency and whose cell phones will be essential for integrating Web3 into their daily lives, so Saga should expand its app count as soon as possible.
The SolanaSagaWeb3 phone's performance should meet the needs of everyday users. The appeal to niche markets constitutes the user base for this phone, and although it is unknown whether it will be successful in the market, one thing is clear: Solana hopes that more and more everyday consumers will flock to the Web3 product.
Whether the Saga Web3 phone can be the next "killer device" to attract the next billion users, at least the scales are beginning to tip in the direction of Web3.
