Sometimes whilst wandering the halls of CES 2015 or another trade show, bemoaning the scale of the venue, your sore feet and the always-not-quite-enough supply of hors d’oeuvres, you stumble across something that makes your day. This is how I felt when I stopped by the Saygus booth to take a look at their seriously well-equipped new Android smartphone: the Saygus V2.
Now, I won’t even pretend that I can cover the entire phone in this short space, so you’ll have to wait for a final production version to arrive in the office in the next few weeks so we can test it out fully, but suffice to say, anything you ever wished a phone had, the Saygus V2 has. In fact, Saygus claim the V2 has13 unique features that no other phone possesses. Want the highlights? Here goes:
- 21 MP main camera with 13 MP front-facing camera, both with Optical Image Stabilization
- 64 GB of on-board storage and dual-microSD card slots allowing up to 320 GB of memory
- 3,100 mAh removable battery with Qi wireless charging
- IPX7 water-resistant rating
- Fractal antenna (the funky design on the back)
- 60 GHz wireless beaming
- Side-mounted biometric scanner
- Dual front-facing Harmon Kardon speakers and three microphones
21 MP on the back and 13 MP up front, both with OIS? Sounds good to me. © ANDROIDPIT
There’s a bunch of other cool stuff on board too, like Noise Cancelling technology, boot-from-SD-card, a power-saving chip, USB OTG, IR blaster, Bluetooth 4.0, NFC, near-stock Android 4.4 KitKat (with plans for the Lollipop update in the near future), a quad-core Snapdragon 801 clocked at 2.5 GHz and 3 GB of RAM. All in a surprisingly light, but super-durable 5-inch Full HD device sandwiched in Kevlar and Gorilla Glass 4 with aluminum edging. No wonder this thing is a CES Innovation Awards Honoree.
That’s not just some design flair either: it’s a fractal antenna for even better reception. © ANDROIDPIT
This is a very well-considered and feature-packed phone, perhaps the most feature-packed device I’ve ever seen, and I’m really looking forward to seeing how it stacks up under full review conditions. There’s no official price yet, but you can expect it to sit somewhere around the 650 – 750 USD range. While this may seem high for what may be an unheard-of brand for you, with a specs sheet like this, there’s a lot going for the Saygus V2. Pre-orders are available right now via the Saygus website. Saygus aims to have the V2 shipping in the next few weeks.
What do you think of the Saygus V2? Would you take a punt on a phone as feature-packed as this?