Popular tech YouTuber Marques Brownlee, who runs the MKBHD channel, is warning users not to buy the Solana Saga cryptocurrency phone, a rebranded version of the OSOM OV1.
What Happened: The Solana Saga crypto phone has received a thumbs down from Brownlee, saying that the phone is geared towards just one specific cryptocurrency stack, Solana (CRYPTO: SOL).
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"There's basically no reason for 99.99% of people to buy this phone," he said.
Brownlee was especially critical about the smartphone side of things in the Solana Saga. In his experience, the cameras were mediocre, and the battery capacity was inadequate for a phone its size.
On the crypto side, the Solana Saga comes with the Solana Mobile Stack, a set of software tools that allows apps to connect to the Solana blockchain. This is also one of its drawbacks – it only connects to the Solana blockchain, not Bitcoin, Ethereum, or any other blockchain out there.
It also has a seed vault and a d-apps store that lists some popular crypto apps.
‘Completely Useless': As far as the practicality of the Solana Saga phone for most normal users out there is concerned, Brownlee's remarks were scathing.
"At best, [this phone is] ahead of its time. At worst, it is completely useless to most everyday people," he said.
However, he did like the build quality of the phone and the fact that the software is "extremely clean", like stock Android. But those two pros might not be enough to justify buying it, even for $600. Solana had initially priced it at the same price as the iPhone 14 Pro – $1,000.
"Even if you were to try to buy this phone just for a nice clean stock Android phone and totally ignore all the crypto features, you can get a lot more for $600," he explained his stance, giving options like the Pixel 7 or even the upcoming Pixel 8.
Image Source – OSOM
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