Solana Saga Review: The First Crypto Phone To Explore The Web3

July 1, 2023 - Around 8 mins mins to read

The Saga smartphone by Solana Mobile indeed aims to provide users with a comprehensive solution for engaging in various activities related to cryptocurrency and the decentralized web. With its focus on minting NFTs, trading crypto, and navigating web3, the Saga phone seeks to empower individuals to participate actively in the digital economy. Let’s find out details about this phone with Coincu through this Solana Saga Review article.

Solana Saga Review: The First Crypto Phone To Explore The Web3

What is the Saga Phone?

The Solana Saga is a new Solana and OSOM solution that combines a flagship phone with an innovative method to handle built-in wallet security for popular Solana wallets like as Solflare and Phantom. Therefore, in a nutshell, it’s a crypto phone with outstanding specifications and consistent day-to-day performance.

The Solana phone costs $1,000 and is now available. The official release date for the Solana Saga phone is May 8th, 2023. You may now receive one if you pre-ordered. If you haven’t already purchased the Saga, you may sign up on Solana Mobile to be alerted when the phones are ready to ship.

The team believes that even in the worst-case scenario, customers will wind up purchasing a really wonderful Android gadget. The phone will also have privacy measures that allow users to disable Google and other services to which they do not want access. Now, the Solana Saga Review article will explore the parameters of this phone.

Overview

General

Android v13
In Display Fingerprint Sensor

Display

6.67 inch, OLED Screen
1440 x 3200 pixels
526 ppi
HDR10+
Corning Gorilla Glass
120 Hz Refresh Rate
Punch Hole Display

Camera

50 MP + 12 MP Dual Rear Camera with OIS
4K UHD Video Recording
16 MP Front Camera

Technical

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 Chipset
3.2 GHz, Octa Core Processor
12 GB RAM
512 GB Inbuilt Memory
Memory Card Not Supported

Connectivity

4G, 5G, VoLTE
Bluetooth v5.3, WiFi, NFC
USB-C v2.0
IR Blaster

Battery

4110 mAh Battery
Fast Charging
Wireless Charging
10W Reverse Charging

Extra

No FM Radio
No 3.5mm Headphone Jack

Features

Seed Vault

Phantom and Solfare Solana wallets employ a 12-word seed phrase to generate or restore a wallet’s private keys (the keys that let you spend crypto). Solana’s seed vault ups the ante by producing a secure key with a 24-word seed phrase in encrypted storage and then granting access to the seed vault to certain applications — the aforementioned Phantom and Solflare wallets — for safe transactions.

These applications are installed via Solana’s own dApp Store rather than Google Play, with the following advantages:

Secure seed vault (knows your seed phrase)
Solana dApp wallets (unknown seed phrase)
Solana mobile applications (just talk to the wallet)
More applications for Android 13 OS

This configuration keeps your seed phrase distinct from the operating system and other software. It should be noted that the seed vault only works with Solana and the two wallets stated above. If you need to utilize another blockchain, the process is the same as it is on any other Android phone; you set up or restore the seed phrase from inside the app. The seed vault’s 24-word seed phrase is also compatible with other Solana wallets.

For the sake of science, I successfully imported the wallet into the Phantom Wallet Chrome plugin. I was able to execute the same thing on another Android phone after a few attempts, although the difficulties might have been due to a hardware problem. In what we’ll term “The Klondike Derby sled incident,” the phone in issue was once retrieved from an ice-encrusted snowbank.

In summary, even if you drive over your sparkling Saga with a hefty, hand-crafted sled, you can still retrieve your crypto wallet, although in a less secure manner than utilizing Saga’s seed vault.

DApp Store

The Solana Saga phone comes with 18 dApps that can be downloaded. During seed setup, you may have one or both wallets downloaded automatically. Additional dApps, such as Marinade (liquid Solana staking, anyone?) and Jupiter (swaps aplenty), may be downloaded from a special dApp store.

These Solana dApps’ updates and permissions are likewise distinct from the Play Store.

Although the dApp selection is still limited, some of the major brands are already there, and the list is expected to increase over time. The dApp store is based on the Solana Mobile Stack (SMS), an open-source toolkit that allows developers to create mobile applications.

Wallets

Phantom and Solflare are two possibilities to examine.

Each wallet supports both the seed vault and biometric authentication. At the touch of a finger, you may approve transactions. They both include connections to certain more dApps inside their wallet applications. Phantom, for example, has Solend (a crypto lending software), and Solfare includes a built-in browser, allowing you to go into the DeFi weeds if you so choose.

You may also access DeFi applications with Chrome or another browser. I used Chrome to connect to Solend and Marinade, selecting “Mobile Wallet Adapter” from the connect option. This summons your seed vault wallet of choice, in my instance Phantom.

Minty Fresh

Minty Fresh is one of 18 applications available in the dApp marketplace, and it’s really simple to use. Minty Fresh NFTs are created from your own graphics or photographs. If you’ve always wanted an NFT of your big toe or your dog that barks like a maniac during Zoom calls, now’s your chance.

Separately, the Saga comes with a free Genesis NFT — as well as a little dollars to get you started on your Solana voyage. That’s a nice touch.

Jupiter And Marinade

Jupiter Finance dApp is a DeFi virtual currency asset developed on Solana.

Marinade Finance is a Solana-based non-custodial liquid staking mechanism. Marinade delivers a frictionless experience via automated staking techniques, with no lockup periods and fast access to staking rewards, for users who wish to stake their SOL tokens and participate in DeFi.

Solana Mobile Stack

The Solana Mobile Stack (SMS) is a free and open-source developer tool for building mobile-first cryptocurrency apps on the Solana blockchain.

Other blockchain applications may also contribute their code to Solana Labs to be audited and integrated. The objective for the future is to outsource the audit and integration to other teams.

Fees

Apart from network costs for transactions, exchange fees, and staking fees (all of which are standard), users should not incur any additional expenses. Thus far, the Solana dApp store is completely free to use, with no hidden fees. This is subject to change in the future. With crypto, there are no assurances.

Security

Two-thirds of the way up the rear of the Saga is a round, recessed fingerprint sensor. Learn how to use that part of the phone since you’ll use it a lot.

Saga takes security carefully since it syncs to user wallets and seed storage. Most Saga users are unlikely to be able to tell where Saga UX and security finish and an individual app’s security starts.

Customer Support

OSOM, a privacy-focused startup, created the Saga (like the seed vault). Nevertheless, support is only available via Solana Mobile. The website has a ticket system, a chat, and various FAQ-style support pages. The Saga is covered by a one-year limited guarantee against faults for the original owner alone.

Why Saga has good support for crypto users?

Nowadays, cryptocurrency is mostly utilized on desktop browsers and is not optimized for mobile. The cooperation between OSOM and Solana Labs, hopefully, will alter that by allowing mobile-first web 3 solutions.

Crypto-specific hardware enables developers to construct previously unimaginable products. This incredible experience requires the following components:

Secure Elements that allow you to access your keys safely while the wallet never sees your seed phrase
Trust Zone that prevents your wallet from lying about what you are signing APIs that allow you to do Bip 39 Key Recovery
Decentralized Dapp Marketplace with no fees at first (0.2% transaction fees in the future)

If the Saga and the Solana network as a whole want to enroll a billion people, the seed vault is a step in the right way — but it’s just the first of many.

Most individuals will not bother with a 24-word recovery phrase that they must keep secret. To achieve Solana’s aim, a new strategy may be required at some time.

Conclusion of Solana Saga Review

The Solana Saga accomplishes its goal: it’s a phone that has a Solana hardware wallet and showcases the best of what web3 has to offer. The issue is that what web3 has to offer is still limited to NFTs and trading.

Android used to be the Linux to iOS’s macOS: a far more open experience with rough edges that might rend your shirt. It’s now just as wonderful as iOS, but less limited and complicated.

The Saga is a usable blockchain phone with built-in security that many cryptocurrency consumers will look for. Hopefully the Solana Saga Review article has helped you understand more about the phone.

DISCLAIMER: The information on this website is provided as general market commentary and does not constitute investment advice. We encourage you to do your own research before investing.

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Harold

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