Solana’s ‘Saga’ Smartphone Goes on Sale May 8 at $1,000 Price

Solana’s crypt smartphone Saga will go on public sale May 8, the company behind the Solana blockchain said Thursday.

The new device from Solana Mobile costs $1,000 and is built on hardware from Bay Area smartphone company OSOM. It has 512 GB of storage, two versatile back camera lenses, a 6.67-inch OLED display and a fingerprint scanner. It will ship with the latest Android operating system installed.

Saga features the “Solana Mobile Stack” (SMS), which is a lineup of custom add-ons that integrate crypto usefulness into the phone’s hardware and software. SMS has ingrained security features to provide for sending, receiving, trading and storing crypto on the device.

Solana has enhanced the security of Saga's smartphone by integrating a customized "seed vault" within the device's hack-resistant secure element. This vault stores a crypto user's private keys in a segregated manner from the rest of the phone's data, thereby offering heightened protection to the keys.

Furthermore, Saga boasts a tailor-made "dapp" store that exclusively features crypto applications. The store currently hosts over a dozen such applications encompassing crypto trading, inter-wallet communications, music, and digital collectibles, with additional offerings anticipated in the future. Unlike Apple and Google, which charge a 30% tax on their respective storefronts, Solana has decided not to levy any "extractive fees" on its dapp store applications.