Author: Weilin, PANews
On September 19, Solana Mobile, a subsidiary of Solana Labs, released its second Web3 mobile phone "Seeker" at the TOKEN2049 conference in Singapore. Seeker, previously known as "Chapter 2", has received widespread attention since its debut in January this year. According to official data, Seeker's pre-sale sales have exceeded 140,000 units.
Unlike before, Seeker comes with a mobile-first Seed Vault wallet and integrates with the new Solana dApp store. In this article, PANews will take users to take a quick look at this long-awaited Web3 mobile phone.
Integrate new version of dApp store, expected to be released in mid-2025
According to the official introduction, the name Seeker was inspired by the idea of users trying to “find new opportunities,” whether it’s rewards, experiences, or connections.
According to the official description, compared to Solana Mobile's first Web3 mobile phone Saga, Seeker's hardware will have major improvements, with better battery performance, better camera performance, and a lighter design than Saga. The Seeker will cost $450 and will remain on sale until the end of Breakpoint on September 21, with the Seeker expected to ship in mid-2025.
Key features announced so far for Solana Seeker include the Seed Vault Wallet, a mobile-focused crypto wallet with native integration with the self-hosted Seed Vault built into the device, with fast transactions and easy account management. This wallet was created by Solflare exclusively for Seekers.
At the same time, both Saga and Seeker are based on the Android system, and the Seeker mobile phone also integrates Solana dApp Store 2.0, with a new reward tracker and improved application discovery capabilities, covering applications in the fields of payment, DeFi, DePIN, NFT, artificial intelligence and games.
Similar to Saga, buyers of Seeker can earn a Seeker Genesis Token—a uniquely tied NFT that unlocks rewards, exclusive access, offers, and content across the Solana ecosystem.
Not only that, but compared to the Saga, the Seeker's hardware is significantly improved over its predecessor, including a lighter weight, brighter screen, enhanced camera capabilities, and longer battery life.
In addition, Seeker has also made significant price cuts. Previously, the Saga phone was priced at $1,000 when it was released, but later dropped to $599. Seeker set the pre-sale price at $450, less than half the price of the Saga.
Solana Mobile general manager Emmett Hollyer said that Seeke should not be judged based on its price reduction. Solana Mobile is very ambitious with its pricing and hopes it can achieve growth, saying, "We do not consider this a price reduction."
The first generation of Saga successfully "counterattacked", Solana Labs regained confidence
As the successor to Solana Saga, Seeker reflects Solana's determination to bet on the mobile product line again. Solana's mobile phone product line was once in danger of failure. The previous generation product, Saga, was in trouble last year due to poor sales, but later crypto users discovered that purchasing the device could get airdrops of tokens worth more than the device itself, which brought Saga back to life.
In April last year, multiple meme currency projects issued token airdrops for Solana Chapter 2 mobile phones. Users only need to fill in the Solana wallet address filled in when pre-ordering. Two cat-themed meme coins that stand out are the 37,600 Cat in a Dogs World (MEW) airdrops on April 1 and the 5,199 Maneki (MANEKI) tokens airdropped on April 24. If buyers had not sold these meme coins, the value of these two airdrops reached a peak of $504 around April, and the price of the phone was only $450, allowing users to easily recoup their money.
Eight months later, Saga’s sales suddenly increased by more than 10 times in the two days from December 14th to December 15th, mainly driven by the airdrop of Solana’s ecological puppy-themed token BONK. Buyers of Saga mobile phones only need to mint Genesis tokens through their mobile phones, and use the tokens to receive airdrops of 30 million BONK tokens. The initial US dollar value of these BONK airdrops was approximately US$10, and later the value of the tokens was close to US$700. The airdrop value of multiple MEME tokens has far exceeded the selling price of the Saga mobile phone itself, which also drove the sales of the mobile phone to be in short supply. The successful counterattack of Saga has restored Solana Labs' confidence and prompted them to continue to integrate encryption technology more deeply into mobile devices and develop exclusive hardware and software.
With the success of the previous work, expectations for the release of the new mobile phone Seeker are very high, and Solana has received more than 100,000 pre-orders in early 2024. Solana Mobile officials stated on TOKEN 2049 that based on these capital injections and the trust commitment of buyers, Solana Mobile successfully obtained a more favorable supply chain agreement than the first-generation product.
Compared with Saga's previous global production of 20,000 units, Seeker's pre-order sales are now 7 times that of Saga's production, not to mention that the complete hardware specifications of the new phone have not yet been announced. But can Seeker recreate the "legend" of Saga? Let us look forward to its performance together.
(The above content is excerpted and reprinted with the authorization of our partner PANews, original text link )
Statement: The article only represents the author's personal views and opinions, and does not represent the objective views and positions of the blockchain. All contents and opinions are for reference only and do not constitute investment advice. Investors should make their own decisions and transactions, and the author and Blockchain Client will not be held responsible for any direct or indirect losses caused by investors' transactions.
〈Solana Mobile launches Web3 mobile phone Seeker again: pre-sale sales exceed 140,000 units, to be released in mid-2025〉 This article was first published on "Block Guest".
