Solana’s long awaited $1,000 web3 phone, Saga, is now reality and is now being rolled out to those who pre-ordered, with shipping set to start on Wednesday 20th April.
Co-founder and CEO of Solana, Anatoly Yakavenko, started off the Saga launch event stating that he couldn’t see a future that wasn’t mobile. Hence Solana’s efforts to break new ground and make a smartphone adapted for our age, where web3 services are more accessible for users.
Built on top of a highend OV1 Android device from US OEM OSOM, the Saga device is natively web3 as it runs full-stack Solana software – labelled Solana Mobile Stack. In terms of hardware, it has the Seed Vault, which securely holds the private key for a Solana wallet in its own trusted execution environment in such a way that no apps or even the Android OS can access it.
Saga owners will get some special rewards to get them started including 0.01 SOL for gas and $20 in USDC as part of Solana Mobile’s welcome pack.
Also exciting is the limited-release collection of Saga genesis NFTs, which will enable future Solana-based projects to identify early adopters and decide how they want to access and reward them.
In the meantime, there are assets from titles such as Genopets and Honeyland as well as exclusive music from Audius. Added to that is $25 in USDC from Magic Eden, and US users will get access to web3 mobile network Helium.
More importantly, there is the embedded app store, enabling developers to create fully-native blockchain games and DeFi products, without having to deal with issues like platform holder T&Cs. Users will be able to sign transactions in the apps simply, using biometrics, as well as securely, because all transactions are signed in the Seed Vault.
New orders will be open from 8th May. To find out more, visit the Saga phone website.