Neither the author, Tim Fries, nor this website, The Tokenist, provide financial advice. Please refer to our website policy before making financial decisions.
It looks like Solana’s efforts to connect hardware to software are off to a rocky start. Since the launch date of June 23, people have pre-ordered 2,872 Solana Saga phones. Within three days, pre-orders climbed to the 2k limit but are struggling to reach 3k till date.
Solana Saga pre-order no. Image credit: Dune Analytics (@aa007zz)
This is a worrying figure for future sales of this Android smartphone, as it represents only 0.02% of the monthly active Solana addresses for July.
Even if one is generous and assumes that each Solana user has 10 addresses, that would still be less than a percentage point. Those who pre-ordered the Solana Saga phone had to pay $100 to register, which brought Solana Labs $287,200 in income before taxation.
However, when it comes out in early 2023, the Saga is believed to cost around $1,000 as a flagship Android smartphone.
What are the specs of Solana Saga?
Anatoly Yakovenko, head of Solana Labs, which develops and maintains the Solana blockchain, introduced the Saga phone on 23 June. The goal was to provide Solana users with the best web3 experience, from NFT purchases to lending dApps.
Within the new subdivision Solana Mobile, Saga is at the forefront of the trendline. In 2017, screen sizes over 6 inches accounted for only 9.2% of the market share. Two years later, the same screen size increased to 43.4% market share. The Solana Saga joins the trend at 6.67 inches. Other specifications include:
- OLED 120 Hz Display Because it works without a backlight, it uses less battery, but is more expensive
- 512 GB storage
- 12GB RAM
- 4,100 mAh battery
- Two rear-facing cameras, at 48 and 12 megapixels. Front 16MP . Is
The phone is enclosed with a ceramic back with stainless steel and titanium. Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 processor powers it, with 8 cores clocked at 3200MHz clock speed. It currently ranks third in CPU power, with Apple’s A15 Bionic still in first place.
Who is behind the Solana saga?
The company in charge of producing the Solana saga is OSOM, headed by Jason Keats. After launching its Essential Phone, the startup was formed from the remnants of Essential. The phone flopped because this smartphone didn’t bring anything new to the table, resulting in serious price cuts and layoffs.
With that experience under their belts, OSOM employees developed the OSOM OV1, now rebranded as the Solana Saga under the above specifications. Keats explained the partnership with Solana as a matter of matching needs.
“He [Anatoly] There was a need for someone who could design and arrange for the hardware to be manufactured, who knew the players in Asia to actually build a quality device. We needed a user and a customer base that was enthusiastic about consumer choice, self-custody and personal privacy.”
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Does it make sense to launch a blockchain-focused phone?
The bad pre-order saga numbers speak for themselves. However, it must also be said that Solana struggles with its centralized image. After seven outages and a network restart, many investors have questioned Solana’s future.
In fact, California investor Mark Young filed a class-action lawsuit against Solana Labs and related VC firms. The complaint states that the company has violated the securities law. In addition, that Solana is “highly centralized”, which is probably the reason for so many outages.
As a result of this branding problem, Solana has fared significantly in this bear market despite offering lower fees and faster transaction times than Ethereum, which outperformed +500% last year.
Year-to-date (YTD), Ethereum outperformed Solana by +16%. Image credit: TradingView
It can then be speculated that Solana Saga will not gain much traction, as it ties itself to a troubled blockchain. More importantly, it’s doubtful if there’s enough room for a Web3-specific phone. After all, Web3 is just a software stack that can run on any modern smartphone hardware.
In addition, Solana reduced its market share to -50% from November 2021 to today.
Now, Polygon, an Ethereum sidechain, is set to oversee Solana’s TVL, with Avalanche and Tron already surpassing it. Finally, is the market ready to start with another flagship phone, now that consumer power is rapidly eroding due to rising inflation?
Finally, deep-pocket giants like Apple and Samsung can simply add Web3 branding when needed. They could have used a fraction of their marketing budget to that effect. It is quite clear that they have not yet seen the need to do so.
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About the Author
Tim Fries is the cofounder of The Tokenist. He did B.Sc. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Tim served as a senior associate on the investment team at RW Baird’s US Private Equity division, and is also the co-founder of Protective Technologies Capital, an investment firm specializing in sensing, security and control solutions.
