Lots of our readers have been ready for OSOM, the corporate reformed from the ashes of an Andy Rubin-less Important, to ship the OV1 smartphone it has been teasing since 2020. In what’s going to probably be a excellent news/unhealthy information association, now you can pre-order the cellphone, however some key particulars have modified. The OV1 is now the Solana Saga, a blockchain-integrated Android flagship.
The information of the change comes courtesy of a Tweet from OSOM, which landed with a simultaneous replace to each OSOM and Solana’s web site. Particulars are nonetheless sparse, and full specs for the cellphone nonetheless have not been printed, however you may pre-order the system with a $100 deposit solely via Solana, although that requires a Solana pockets.
A spokesperson from OSOM offered Android Police with the next particulars:
OSOM is thrilled to associate with Solana to provide the Solana Saga, a flagshipAndroid cell phone with distinctive performance and options tightly built-in with the Solana blockchain making it straightforward and safe to transact in web3 and handle digital belongings, equivalent to tokens and NFTs. For extra data on OSOM, please go to www.osomprivacy.com, and keep tuned for additional data on the Saga in addition to the OSOM/Solana partnership.“OSOM is extremely excited to associate with Solana in constructing the Saga. The world wants novel {hardware} firms to assist the longer term that’s Web3. Constructing out an ecosystem that appears to the longer term with out being burdened by previous legacy ecosystems is massively thrilling” says Jason Keats, Founder and CEO of OSOM Merchandise Inc.
In follow-up correspondence, OSOM PR confirms to us that the OV1 as we knew it’s primarily useless, changed by the Solana-integrated Saga. Based on Solana’s website, the cellphone options assist for the Solana Cellular Stack, an SDK developed for constructing apps on Android that may work together with the Solana community. Solana says this may enable builders “to publish cell dAPPS and distribute them via a specialised storefront,” presumably obtainable on the cellphone.
Specs for the cellphone have now been printed as effectively:
| Chipset | Snapdragon 8 Gen 1 + (Qualcomm 8475) |
|---|---|
| Storage | 512GB UFS or eMMC |
| RAM | 12GB |
| Show | “FD+ or greater” 6.55″ 120Hz AMOLED |
| Software program | “OSOM Proprietary model of Android” |
| Rear Cameras | 50MP f/1.8 IMX766 wide-angle (70° FOV), 12MP f/2.2 IMX373 ultra-wide (120° FOV) |
| Entrance Digicam | 16MP f/1.8 IMX481 (80° FOV, fixed-focus) |
| Battery and charging | 4100mAh, QC 5.0 fast-charging, Qi wi-fi charging |
| Connectivity | Bluetooth 5.0, As much as Wi-Fi 6, NFC |
| Misc | Mono loudspeaker, Corning Victus Glass, |
| Dimensions | 166.2 x 75.9 x 7.9mm, <195g |
Many Important followers favored the unique mannequin for its surprisingly small dimension, however OSOM’s Saga might be a bigger cellphone — greater than the Galaxy S22 and roughly the identical dimension because the Galaxy S22+, in response to the scale offered. Powered by the newest Snapdragon 8 Gen 1+, the chipset within the cellphone may not be the newest and biggest come subsequent yr, after Qualcomm sometimes publicizes its new {hardware}.
A few of particulars sound like they may not be agency but, as OSOM lists two completely different storage requirements, each eMMC and UFS. There may also be at the very least two completely different SKUs with differing band assist.
OSOM additionally claims will probably be working a “proprietary model of Android,” and it isn’t clear exactly what that can imply. Beforehand, the corporate teased involvement to a point with Graphene OS, a security-conscious customized ROM which has been ceaselessly embroiled in drama for attempting to pull its ostensibly open source contributions from other projects.
The OSOM/Solana Saga will ship in “early 2023” with an anticipated price of $1,000. In March, the corporate advised us that the cellphone could be “effectively sub-$1,000” and that does not seem to have panned out in response to this estimate.
OSOM is not the primary firm to contemplate a blockchain-integrated cellphone. HTC, within the face of declining market share and relevance, equally turned to the blockchain with the Exodus in 2018. If that does not sound acquainted, that is in all probability as a result of it did not have any actual influence, and the cellphone was only a rebadged HTC U12+. A follow-up cellphone, the HTC Exodus 1s, made little further headway. Many latest Samsung telephones can retailer cryptocurrency inside encrypted storage as effectively. Final yr, Samsung added support for transferring crypto from a {hardware} pockets to its telephones.
Whereas cryptocurrency and the “web3” motion are in style amongst some tech lovers and speculative traders, many purchasers at this level see cryptocurrency and blockchain-related purposes as little greater than advertising and marketing, doing little to show themselves with concrete purposes or use instances.
As a fan of the expertise that underpins blockchain methods and the alternatives it could actually present in growing novel applied sciences and new methods, even I have to admit being vital of the at present marketed method and hype surrounding virtually all commercially promoted blockchain-related companies and merchandise. In 99% of purposes, it is a gimmick, and that features each smartphone use case so far. Seeing a cellphone that I might gotten so labored up for now weighed down with a crypto gimmick is fairly disappointing, frankly. I hesitate to say the cellphone has been ruined, we’ll should see what the completed product really seems like, however this was a fast and straightforward approach to kill my pleasure.
