Last year’s launch of the Solana Saga smartphone was a big bet by Solana Labs that didn’t initially appear to pay off. But a year-end surge in demand around the then-discounted phone, thanks in part to the surging value of token airdrops tied to it, cleared out the remaining stock and prompted questions about what’s next.
Enter “Chapter 2.” Revealed in January, just weeks after the airdrop craze that revitalized the Saga’s fortunes, the next Solana phone is set to launch in mid-2025 as the Solana Seeker after already attracting 140,000 pre-orders.
Solana Mobile, the Labs division behind the hardware, revealed the official branding and a first look at the next Android handset onstage at Token 2049 in Singapore Friday.
And it’s different. The previously announced $450 pre-order cost—less than half that of the Saga—might have already suggested that, but Solana Mobile General Manager Emmett Hollyer told Decrypt that we shouldn’t judge the Seeker by its much lower price point. “We’ve priced it very aggressively because we want it to be accessible for growth,” he said, “not necessarily because we see this in any way of a step down.
Full hardware specifications haven’t been released yet, but Hollyer said that the Solana Seeker will have a brighter “flagship display” and a longer-lasting battery than the Saga, plus “better cameras”—including a new third sensor packed onto the back.
And in terms of performance, he suggested that it will be a “meaningful step up from Saga,” in part because it’s been so long since the Saga’s specs were set in early 2022. The Seeker hardware is also “lighter and smaller” than the Saga was, in part because they believe that many users plan to use it as a secondary device rather than replacing their primary phone.
That’s a shift in form as well as a pivot in messaging, which Hollyer said was based in part on feedback to Saga and emerging use cases, such running node software and mining tokens for decentralized physical infrastructure networks (DePINs). The Seeker name, he explained, was inspired by the idea of users trying to “find new opportunities,” whether that’s rewards, experiences, or connection.
He admitted that messaging around the Saga may have been confusing in terms of its crypto focus. But with 140,000 people already plunking down deposits for the Seeker, they’re confident that there’s a growing group of prospective users—and that this phone will be focused on new and entrenched crypto users, rather than the general public.
“I don’t expect this to be a device that we’re just pitching to the masses, like, ‘Hey, use an Android phone and maybe try some of the crypto features,’” Hollyer said. “I’d love to be there, but I think we need to really, really get this right, and really learn from our users before we can start to pull in the masses.”
Amid all the changes, however, some elements of the Seeker are very much like the Saga. The crypto integration is again driven by the Seed Vault, a custom custody solution built within a secure environment on the phone. It’s called out visually in the phone’s design this time, as seen in the product shots, in a glossy cutout wrapped around the right side of the frame.
In addition to the Seed Vault itself, Solana Mobile has designed a custom software wallet for the Seeker in collaboration with Solflare, promising what Hollyer described as a “better user experience” compared to the wallets currently available on the Saga.
They’ve also seen substantially more interest from Solana developers and builders in launching mobile decentralized apps (dapps) alongside the Seeker. Just 20,000 units of the Saga were produced, but with Seeker pre-orders already hitting a 7x multiple of that, he said that developers have more incentive to devote time and resources to mobile.
Lastly, like the Saga, each Seeker phone will ship with a Genesis NFT—a soulbound token forever tied to the owner’s wallet. The Saga pioneered this model, and it quickly proved to be a “rewards magnet” for owners, as Hollyer framed it, thanks to the BONK meme coin airdrop surging in value late last year and other projects rewarding owners as well.
All of those incentives were community-driven, he said, and there’s been a massive wave of interest from Solana builders in tapping into the Seeker audience too. While there will no doubt be rewards, he also expects projects to offer exclusive access and experiences to owners.
“Of course, it will be a rewards magnet,” said Hollyer, “but it also is going to open some one-of-a-kind experience doors that I think will be new to Seeker versus Saga.”
