There was a lot for us to get excited for when OSOM burst onto the scene a couple years ago. Coming from the remnants of Andy Rubin’s Essential, it looked like it was ready to tackle Android phones in ways the mass market hadn’t with its OV1. Things took a left turn, though, when it announced that Web3 startup Solana was providing a ton of operating capital in exchange for a new phone with a new focus. Now, after nearly a year in waiting, we’re finally going to hear everything about the Solana Saga, potentially including when customers can buy one.
Solana, which has carried most of the narrative around the device since it initiated the project with OSOM, has announced that it will be launching the Saga on Thursday, April 13 at 1 pm ET.
The blockchain backers have made a big deal about the mobile development opportunities that can open up with purpose-built hardware, but OSOM has previously assured those who don’t have an interest in that kind of stuff that it can be turned off.
Pre-orders have been active for several months and are still open through to launch day. Customers put down $100 (in USD Coin) for a deposit and pay an additional $900 later for the final cost. The phone will initially be available in the US, Canada, the United Kingdom, the European Union, China, Australia, and New Zealand. Solana may still be able to keep to its shipping target of “early 2023.”
In case you need a reminder, the Saga is set to run with a Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1 with 12GB of RAM and 512GB of storage. It’ll run Android 13 out of the box with access to the Google Play Store as well as a decentralized app store (dApp Store).
We’ll be keeping an eye out on the event for ourselves and hope to have more on the Saga in the next few weeks. In the meantime, OSOM remains up and running in the background for now — perhaps our other eye should be on that ball.
