Saga: What we know about the Web3 smartphone Solana is preparing to launch

Solana Labs, one of the crypto companies on the rise, announced a Web3 smartphone called Saga a few months ago. The device’s market debut is coming soon, and new information about the project was released at a recent event.

“Our target is not to sell 10 million units. We would be very happy with 25,000 – 50,000 units sold next year,” Anatoly Yakovenko, co-founder of Solana, told TechCrunch Disrupt.

It’s very difficult for companies with no experience in the field to launch a smartphone. Giants like Google, which makes the Pixel smartphones, still struggle in this market.

Yakovenko, however, is no stranger to the industry. He spent much of his professional career at Qualcomm, the world’s largest maker of smartphone chipsets, where he helped other companies like Microsoft launch smartphones.

For Solana, a failure won’t be very costly. According to Yakovenko, you can relatively easily modify an Android OS smartphone to include Web3-related elements.

In this new type of decentralised internet, individuals would have full ownership of their content, data and assets. In Web3, power would be taken out of the hands of monopolies – like Google or Facebook, which control Web 2.0 – and put into the hands of participants. Crypto technologies – cryptocurrencies, NFTs and blockchains – are what underpin Web3.

New players dream of Apple’s crown

The Saga smartphone will offer a high level of integration with the Solana blockchain, include a wallet for crypto assets and provide easy access to trading platforms for virtual currencies or NFTs.

Solana also announced a framework for the new smartphone, called Solana Mobile Stack (SMS), which will allow developers to create decentralized apps and mobile experiences for the device.

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Such a phone will eliminate the middleman, meaning a buyer will be able to purchase an asset directly from a seller without paying a commission to a middleman. In virtual app stores such as the App Store or Google Play, the two tech giants charge a 30% commission on transactions.

Simply put, in Web 3 people should be able to make transactions faster and at much lower cost.

“Apple and Google don’t want to be part of Web3 because it would destroy their business models,” Yakovenko explained.

The phone – which will feature a Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 chipset, 6.67″ display, 12GB of RAM and 512GB of internal storage – is being developed in collaboration with OSOM, a company founded by former Essential employees. The handset will have a suggested retail price of around $1,000.

This is not the first Web3 device project announced recently. Blockchain developer Zilliqa has announced a Web3 video console. The device will allow users to earn ZIL tokens while having fun playing video games.

A Web3 smartphone, METAVERTU, was also announced by Vertu, the British luxury phone maker.

Like Solana, Vertu also attacked Apple when it announced its product. In the teaser posted on its website, the company reinterpreted the famous “1984” commercial.

The American giant is by far the most profitable phone manufacturer. In the second half of 2021, Apple took in 75% of the total profits recorded in the market and 40% of revenue, according to market research firm Counterpoint Research.