In this post I will cover everything there is to know about the new Solana phone, set to be released in the first half of 2025. Preorders are now in full swing, if you haven’t decided yet if you should jump in or not, read along, you might find some valuable info to help you make up your mind.
Saga, the first Solana phone doomed to fail
The first Solana phone (Saga) was originally destined to be a massive flop. There was a combination of factors which caused the seeming failure of the project, even though in the beginning it was looking like it would be a great success. So what happened?
The team behind the Saga phone is OSOM, which is a new company formed by former members of the Essential Phone project. This by itself was reason for confidence in professionalism in terms of the quality and the build of their new product. Upon announcement, the hardware was a beautiful beast, amazing hardware specs, spectacular outer body, the overall impression was it is just going to be a great phone. Slap on top of this a lot of crypto specific extras, like the built-in hardware wallet and the bonuses coming with the ownership of the Genesis token (the NFT Saga owners received as proof of ownership), and it was set to be the king of web3 devices.
However, the global chip shortage, the crypto bear market and some other factors all contributed to a massive delay in the product launch, and by the time the phone was ready to ship, the hardware appeared to be getting on the path of becoming outdated, as other devices started appearing on the market which had faster chips and better hardware combinations. As the price of the Saga phone remained $1000 + shipping (+taxes outside of the US), even the enthusiastic supporters started to have second guesses.
I got my Saga phone when the team decided to have a massive discount for 1 day, on a first-come-first-served basis. I managed to snatch the phone for $420,69 which was an amazing deal.
I love the phone. Interestingly enough, it is so great that it made me interested in NFTs, something I never imagined would happen. I actually minted 2 Claynosaurz NFTs that I sold for around 20 SOL each. Not bad! On top of all this, I got a ton of valuable airdrops from all the different Solana based projects, like BONK! and Access Protocol, with an overall bonus value of $5000+ The Saga phone was hands down my best investment in a long time.
Regardless of the discount and all the bonuses, there were still a lot of Saga units in the inventory, getting outdated day by day.
However, all this started to change with the bull market banging on the door of 2024, and the Solana project gaining much missed attention, the mobile project successfully rode the waves of the hype. As a sugar on top, the partnerships and airdrops that were announced for all the Saga owners propelled sales into a buying frenzy.
My video review of the phone can be found here:
Chapter 2 – what can we expect?
After all the buying frenzy of the Saga phone, the path was clear for a second model. So the question arises: what is it going to be like? At this point, there are only rumors and nothing can be taken for granted. Therefore, everything that follows will be an educated guess that I gathered from various sources and my own estimations based on the first model and its characteristics.
The first thing to clarify is: is Chapter 2 going to be a phone at all? Well, it is not confirmed, but most probably it will be. If that will not be the case, then it means that it would be something like a hyper advanced hardware wallet, or a wearable device that somehow brings crypto closer to users. For the time being though, I would lean much more on the side of the possibility of the Chapter 2 being a phone.
If the hardware specs are going to follow the Saga phone’s position at the time, the new Solana phone will be probably somewhat below the flagship configs of the latest Samsung/Xiaomi models available on the market at 2025. Based on that, I would expect nothing less than:
- Snapdragon 8 Gen3 chipset
- Expected RAM would be around 24GB
- Storage around 1TB
- 8K video and 100MP images.
- WiFi7 / 5G mobile
- Hardware wallet built in with advanced biometric security
For the airdrops, I think it will be difficult to top the amazing free value that was made available for the owners. However, we already know some of the sponsors of the Chapter 2, just by looking at which projects are partners and how they could possibly reward the owners of the new phone:
- DRIP – NFTs
- MagicEden – NFTs or ME Diamonds
- SolFlare – Token airdrops
- Phantom – Token airdrops
- Jupiter – Token airdrops
- Tensor – Token airdrops
- Backpack – Token airdrops
- MonkeDAO – Token airdrops
- Step Finance – Token airdrops
- Dialect – Token airdrops
- Helium – Mobile subscription plan discount (US only)
- Solend – Token airdrops
- Drift Protocol – Token airdrops
This is fair list of sponsors, I have to say I am eagerly waiting to see what benefits I will get with the Chapter 2 device.
Price
Obviously, price matters. I am a bit surprised how low the pre-order price was set. the first, limited-time window was offering the device for a lower price than my extraordinary snatch of the Saga phone at $420,96.
First, Founder’s pre-order window: $450 – expired- Second, Early Adopter pre-order window sells the units at $500 each.
- Third, Supporter tier is likely to be around $600 or $650
- Final RRP would possibly be in the $800 area.
For buyers outside of the US, import duties and taxes will apply, so make sure you are adding this to the calculation if you are preparing your budget for the purchase. Furthermore, the pre-order deposits are non-refundable, so make sure you are certain about your decision before you buy.
However, given all the support that the project has already received, I highly doubt that it will disappoint.
Once a pre-order has been successfully placed, shortly this lovely little NFT will pop up in the wallet:
My video about the expectations can be viewed here:
Conclusion
At this point, it is difficult to estimate what the Chapter 2 device will be like. I have my expectations, and I have to say that considering all the airdrops and free alpha I got with the Saga phone, I was glad to pre-order the next device immediately after the Founders window was open.
If you feel like ordering one for yourself, you can do it here:
I like this web site so much, saved to bookmarks.