A More Measured Crypto Phone

Solana’s first smartphone, 2023’s Saga, was an enormous swing for Solana Labs—and initially a miss with customers, at the least till a large value lower and crypto airdrop incentives drove sudden, sellout demand months after launch.

Now, the two.0 mannequin has arrived. The new Seeker serves as an try by Solana to ship a extra palatable crypto cellphone. It prices half the value of the Saga at launch, presently promoting for $500, with early pre-orders getting it $50 cheaper. By some measures, it’s expectedly much less strong and ultra-premium than the expensive Saga.

However the Seeker hits a a lot better candy spot at this value, with largely good-to-great {hardware} plus the added crypto options that assist set it aside out of your common Android cellphone. It’s nonetheless decidedly area of interest in attraction, and the state of the Solana dapp retailer doesn’t really feel that completely different from again in 2023, with little to maintain my consideration past buying and selling apps.

However Solana customers don’t should take as a lot of a bet shopping for the Seeker, and if the cell dapp ecosystem improves and/or there are critical airdrops forward, possibly it’ll show to be simply as worthwhile because the Saga was to early adopters. However that’s nonetheless a possibly, for now.

A stable Android

The second it hit your hand, it was clear that the Solana Saga was a beast—heavy and expensive-feeling, because of the ceramic backing, with distinctive visible components.

At half the value, the Seeker has taken a distinct route. A plastic body and glass backing make it extra mid-range in really feel than flagship, although it’s hardly nameless amongst Androids because of the reflective “Seed Vault” cutout on the again and alongside the aspect (which homes the fingerprint sensor), plus a pair of Solana logos.

The 6.36-inch display—whereas smaller than the 6.67-inch show of the Saga—is definitely each brighter and noticeably crisper than its predecessor, with the identical sort of dynamic refresh charge (as much as 120Hz) that makes for easy scrolling. That’s an enormous win.

The Mediatek Dimensity 7300 chip here’s a step down when it comes to uncooked horsepower, although, with Geekbench benchmark testing exhibiting a 33% dip in multi-core and 44% drop in single-core efficiency in comparison with the Saga’s extra highly effective Qualcomm Snapdragon 8+ Gen1 chip.

What does that imply in apply? Not a lot, actually: In on a regular basis use, the Seeker feels snappy and responsive when navigating round Android, shopping the net, and utilizing social media and video apps. It’s not constructed to deal with the glossiest video games at high settings, however when it comes to day-to-day wants, the Seeker didn’t disappoint. And the beefy 4,500mAh battery ought to get you to bedtime and not using a top-up, with wi-fi charging right here as a welcome comfort.

Digital camera high quality was the one notably underwhelming component of the Seeker throughout my testing, which is typical at this value level. Throughout my week of carrying the Seeker round, the three rear cameras—a 108-megapixel foremost sensor plus 50MP telephoto (zoom) and 13MP ultra-wide—gave me broadly related outcomes: fairly good pictures when there was quite a lot of pure gentle, and routinely tough and blurry snaps in low gentle.

The Solana Saga was largely conceived throughout a bull run and finally launched after SOL cratered in worth. In the meantime, the Seeker was created following that collapse, although finally launched after the Solana ecosystem’s monumental comeback.

It is smart that the Seeker is a extra measured system at a way more cheap beginning value—and digicam qualms apart, it did all the pieces I wanted it to as a smartphone.

Room to develop

Just like the Saga, the Solana Seeker is designed from the bottom as much as be a safe crypto pockets because of the Seed Vault, which shops your non-public keys and guards transactions behind your fingerprint approval.

The native, Solflare-powered Seed Vault Pockets is straightforward to make use of, with a double-tap of the aspect button and fingerprint scan used to authorize strikes. Phantom and different wallets can be added through the Solana Dapp Retailer. And the Seeker ID, which supplies you a plain-English .skr pockets title (or “digital passport”) for sending and receiving crypto, is a pleasant user-friendly contact that would develop into extra helpful in time.

The Seeker is primed to energy a possible world of decentralized, on-chain apps… and but, the Dapp Retailer choice offers me the same feeling that it did with the Saga again in 2023. Past buying and selling apps like Jupiter, Drift, Vector, and Marinade.finance, there have been few Solana-powered apps or video games that actually grabbed my consideration.

Should you’re actively buying and selling within the Solana trenches, then the Seeker can hold you within the sport wherever you’re. However if you happen to’re betting on Solana Cellular’s imaginative and prescient of disrupting the Google/Apple duopoly and upending centralized apps and companies with comparable crypto-powered options, then that potential future nonetheless feels far off proper now. A lot of the apps I wanted to speak and keep linked and entertained nonetheless got here from Google’s Android Play Retailer.

However there’s promise, and the Saga confirmed us that being an early adopter to the Solana Cellular ecosystem might repay massive time when it comes to unique token airdrops and entry.

Whether or not the Seeker can recreate that magic—or crucially, increase upon it—stays to be seen.

Simply 20,000 Saga telephones have been finally made, whereas 150,000 Seekers have already shipped. A bigger group of customers means higher adoption for builders, nevertheless it additionally means dilution and fewer exclusivity for airdrops and rewards. And we’ve but to see how the upcoming SKR token, which can be distributed to each customers and builders, will assist enhance development.

Shopping for a Seeker is a wager that the Solana Cellular ecosystem will continue to grow within the coming years, and that the entry and incentives for house owners will justify the buy-in value. That’s a bet for now, nevertheless it’s a way more inexpensive one than the Saga. And if you happen to’re already actively within the Solana world, then choosing up a Seeker looks like a no brainer.