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00:00All right, so this is a crypto phone, and I know what you're thinking, what the hell
00:10is a crypto phone and why would anyone want that?
00:14And that's exactly what I was thinking when this first crossed my radar.
00:17So this is an upper mid range Android phone with crazy material choices from a brand you've
00:22never heard of with some specific crypto features built in that launched at $1,000.
00:29Now I know I have been notably skeptical on crypto and web three and blockchain and the
00:38metaverse and all that sort of stuff over the past couple years.
00:40So you may consider me biased, but I still think if you took the crypto out of this phone,
00:49it would at least have potential.
00:51I'm serious.
00:52Let me explain.
00:53So the story of this phone actually starts all the way back with the essential phone.
00:56So I don't know how many of y'all remember the essential phone back in 2017.
01:00But that was a really interesting and exciting new development in the smartphone world.
01:05We don't get that many genuinely promising new phone companies coming along and doing
01:09good things.
01:10But that's exactly what this Andy Rubin startup was promising when they came out with their
01:14first phone.
01:15It was just this refreshing sort of minimal design.
01:18There were no protruding camera bumps, no big logos or branding.
01:22They were one of the first to do this camera notch here at the top of the screen with the
01:26thin bezels.
01:27And they were one of the only ones using these super premium materials, the titanium rails
01:33and polished ceramic on the back.
01:35And then it just had some pins on the back with some magnets for attaching some modular
01:39accessories, just some genuinely interesting, really cool ideas on top of some super clean
01:45software.
01:46Now, unfortunately, this experiment didn't really catch on, you know, this unfortunate
01:50combination of high price, mediocre cameras, not that strong of a feature set for regular
01:57people to care, launching as a Sprint exclusive.
02:00All of this led to extremely low sales.
02:04And then the company would go on to dynamite itself after a bunch of info about Andy Rubin
02:08comes out.
02:09And so we would not get to see a second try and essential phone too.
02:13Now, it sucks to see a promising company with a ton of talent just disappear like that.
02:19But something that happens a lot, a lot of times when these businesses dissolve is the
02:23teams that worked on stuff sometimes will pop up somewhere else and work on something
02:29else.
02:30And so sure enough, in 2020, a bunch of the engineers from the original essential team
02:34got back together to form a new company called Awesome.
02:39And they would announce their first project, the Awesome OV1, basically the spiritual successor
02:43to the essential phone.
02:45And you can see a lot of similarities and continuity in this announcement.
02:50They talked about these crazy materials again, this titanium and polished ceramic and the
02:54rectangular design.
02:56But they also then tried to correct a bunch of the things that doomed the original essential
02:59phone.
03:00It is noticeably bigger and with a bigger screen, bigger battery, etc.
03:04But shocker, they didn't really get enough interest in this brand new startup phone to
03:09be able to bring this whole idea back to life.
03:12It's the classic enthusiast phone problem where like it's a cool idea and some people
03:16really, really want it, but there's not enough hype to be able to make the whole thing happen.
03:21That is until Solana came along.
03:24So Solana is a Web3 company looking for new projects.
03:28And Awesome is this hardware team looking for some backing to make this phone happen.
03:34So Solana would bring the cash and bring their backing.
03:37Awesome would bring their hardware talent and they'd partner together to turn the OV1
03:41into this rebranded Solana Saga crypto phone.
03:46And it would be a thousand dollars.
03:50And that's this phone right here.
03:53So all right, where do we start?
03:54There's basically three things that make this a crypto phone instead of just another regular
04:00Android phone.
04:01It's the Solana mobile stack, the SeedVault and the dAppStore.
04:06So okay, outside of those things, this OV1 or the Solana phone is actually a very average
04:12Android phone.
04:13Like specs wise, it's a Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1.
04:15So that would be last year's flagship chip, but then 12 gigs of RAM and half a terabyte
04:19of storage.
04:20Although it's unclear if it's fast UFS 3.1.
04:22But it's a nice big 6.67 inch flat 1080p 120 Hertz display at the front that gets decently
04:29bright, but it is not LTPO.
04:32It's just a fixed refresh rate.
04:34And then it's powered by a 4,100 milliamp hour battery with wireless charging.
04:38Not great for the size of this screen, but not tiny.
04:42And then it's IP68 water and dust resistant with a micro SD card slot for storage expansion.
04:47But then a pair of really mediocre cameras on the back.
04:51It's got the same 50 megapixel main camera sensor that's in the ROG Phone 7 and the Oppo
04:56Find X5 Pro, but with worse software.
04:59And that's paired with a 12 megapixel ultra wide camera, both of which can pretty much
05:04only produce imperfect lighting, after which things fall apart very quickly with a lack
05:08of detail, excessive noise, just no really impressive strengths.
05:13Just a really very heavily mixed bag here.
05:15But there are two things about this phone that actually I'm very impressed by, that
05:20I really like, okay?
05:22Number one is the materials again.
05:24Just this world class build quality.
05:27Because like I said, it's basically the same team, the awesome OV1 team that came from
05:32the original Essential Phone.
05:33And so they have this affinity for super high quality materials.
05:36So we're talking matte stainless steel frame with colored titanium buttons and a full ceramic
05:42back, which yes, picks up fingerprints everywhere other than the fingerprint reader.
05:46But dude, this phone is a tank.
05:48This phone is also very heavy.
05:50It weighs like 250 grams, which is more than an iPhone 14 Pro Max.
05:54It's got these nice squared off sides that I really like.
05:57There's absolutely no squeaking, creaking, flexing at all.
06:02It's just this hilariously well-made packaging of these average specs.
06:07But then two, the other thing I really like, aside from the crypto stuff, the software
06:11itself, once you get into it, is actually extremely clean, very clean like stock Android.
06:17So it is Android 13, and who knows when it'll get Android 14, if at all, but you can dig
06:22through everything and it is very quick and responsive and clean everywhere.
06:27It's the stock Android quick settings, the stock Android wallpaper and customization
06:31screens, all these stock Google apps, the clock, the calendar, Chrome, everything.
06:36Now does any of this justify a thousand dollar price tag?
06:40Okay, well, let's see.
06:42It's got last year's flagship spec, kind of weak cameras, weak battery, not that amazing
06:48of a screen, but it's stock Android and good build.
06:52Not really worth a thousand bucks, right?
06:54So that's why literally less than a year after it came out, the price plummeted from a thousand
06:59to $600.
07:00So now the real question is, would you pay, would anybody pay $600 for a barely above
07:07average well-built Android phone that happens to have some crypto features built in?
07:14I guess this is the part where I have to go over all of the crypto and web three features.
07:19So all right, like I mentioned earlier, there's three things that make this a crypto phone.
07:24So the Solana mobile stack is an SDK for apps to connect to the Solana blockchain, which
07:29I mean, it's cool that it's built in, but the obvious downside being this does not work
07:33with any other blockchain.
07:35So no Bitcoin, no Litecoin, no Ethereum.
07:39This is just focused on the Solana blockchain.
07:43Then the Seed Vault is basically dedicated storage of a 24 phrase seed stored in a secure
07:49environment where the Android OS cannot see them.
07:52So that would let you unlock your wallet.
07:53And then the last feature is something I've been calling a dApp store, which is literally
07:57a second app store on this device that's specifically for crypto apps, crypto focused stuff.
08:04So Phantom Wallet is on here, OKX, a crypto exchange is on here, Brave Browser, things
08:10like that.
08:11There's an app called Minty Fresh that lets you turn photos from your camera roll into
08:15NFTs in a few seconds and a few clicks if you're into that, I guess.
08:20But those are the only three things that really make this a crypto phone.
08:24And one of them, the dApp store is not really even that special because it is coming to
08:28other phones and you'll be able to get it on a non crypto phone.
08:31So there's that too.
08:33Now the other stuff I think you can actually make an argument is really, really cool to
08:37have built into the phone and actually secure like that.
08:40And if you are in the Solana ecosystem, this is the only place you can get that stuff.
08:46But man, I feel like that's about the most niche feature possible.
08:51Like remember, we were just talking about the Zenfone 10, how I love that phone.
08:55It's a super great phone.
08:57It's just a shame it won't sell because not as many people like small phones.
09:02Do you think the number of people who are in the Solana ecosystem and want to buy a
09:08phone that has some of those features built in is greater than or less than the number
09:15of people who want a small phone?
09:17Basically, the number one coolest thing to come out of this project to me is exposing
09:21me to this thing right here, which is the cable that comes in the box for this phone.
09:25This is a braided USB-C to USB-C cable, but not just any cable.
09:29At the end here is a hard switch that blocks all data and only lets power through, just
09:35making it a charging cable.
09:36And that's actually pretty sick, highly effective for preventing something called juice jacking
09:40attacks, where if you plug into like a public outlet somewhere, but that outlet is malicious
09:45and is going to try to upload malware to your device or download photos or something.
09:50This cable will not let that happen, just blocks all data.
09:53So if you're plugging into an extremely rare public USB-C port, this is actually a great
09:58tool to have, but it's also not that special and it's available on Amazon for like 30 bucks.
10:03So I'll also link that below.
10:04So at this point, I don't even have to really tell you, but the crypto phone is basically
10:10a pretty standard Android phone with a couple kind of cool, but extremely niche crypto features
10:18for one specific crypto stack.
10:22One that happens to also be tanking pretty hard and has been tanking for months.
10:27And I also don't even really have to tell you that there's basically no reason for 99.99%
10:33of people to buy this.
10:34Even if you were to try to buy this phone just for a nice clean stock Android phone
10:39and just totally ignore all the crypto features, you can get a lot more phone for 600 bucks
10:43for the same price.
10:44You could get a pixel seven or probably pixel eight by the time it comes out, you could
10:48get a refurbished Galaxy S23.
10:52You could get any number of OnePlus phones.
10:54I just don't think this is anywhere near the top of the list for 600 bucks.
10:57And really that's, that's the shame of it.
11:00Owning a brand new phone company is really hard unless your name is Carl Pei, apparently.
11:07And so I wish there was a world where the awesome OV1 could just exist and could thrive
11:15and a small niche community could love it.
11:17But now instead, this becomes the perfect embodiment of crypto in 2023, at best ahead
11:27of its time.
11:28But at worst, completely useless to most everyday people and gives whatever else is going to
11:35follow it an even harder uphill battle.
11:40Thanks for watching.
11:42Catch you in the next one.
11:43Peace.
11:44Transcribed by https://otter.ai