Saygus
V2
The
Saygus V2 smartphone was just announced a few days ago. At first glance, the
Saygus V2 (V Squared) looks like a lot of other Android smartphones out there,
but in the case of this device, the devil is in the details. To begin, the
device is rather diminutive, especially considering the trend most
modern smartphones are following today. The device has a 5-inch display and
ultra thin bezels on its sides, making the screen really pop. The screen is
also covered by the new Corning Gorilla Glass 4 which makes the handset quite
durable. The use of kevlar on the front and back panels and an aluminum rim
around the edges make for a premium-feeling, light device.
On
the top and bottom of the front panel sit dual-Harman Kardon speakers which
have produced a really clear sound so far. What’s more, Saygus has also
included a 13 MP front-facing camera, allowing you to take as many high quality
selfies as you’d like. The bottom of the device houses the microUSB port and
3.5 mm headphone jack. The right side features the volume rocker, power/standby
key, hardware shutter button, as well as a swipeable fingerprint scanner.
The
fingerprint scanner is positioned extremely well, as we were able to scan our
fingerprint while holding the device with one hand. There’s no doubt that
simply placing your fingerprint on a fingerprint scanner would be much easier,
but the fact that this one is so well-placed allows us to use it way easier than on some devices.
Turning it around, the bottom of the device houses an interesting design that’s
actually an exclusively-designed antenna, which (should) boost mobile signals
by one bar.
The
display on this device is somewhat standard compared to what we see on the
market. The V2 has a 5-inch 1080p display with a pixel density of 445ppi. The
colors are bright and viewing angles are great, which will give users a great
multimedia experience.
Under
the hood, the V2 has a 2.5 GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor with an Adreno
330 GPU, all backed by 3 GB of RAM. The Snapdragon 801 may not be the latest and
greatest anymore, but it’s still an extremely capable processor which will
likely be able to handle any graphic-intensive task you throw at it.
What’s
likely the biggest selling point of the V2 is the fact that it can house up to
320 GB of external storage. The device has room for two microSD card slots (up
to 128 GB each) on top of the included 64 GB of on-board storage. The high
storage capacity of this device will make movie and music lovers extremely
happy if they decide to pick one of these up.
The
V2 sports a removable 3100 mAh battery that should keep the device running for
quite some time. To top it all off, this device is IPx7 certified for
protection against water submersion. In fact, the V2 can be submerged in up to
a meter of water for 30 minutes without warranting a negative impact.
The
V2 packs an impressive 21 MP rear-facing camera with a dual-LED flash, OIS and
auto-focus. As mentioned above, the 13 MP front camera should be more than
enough to satisfy your selfie-taking needs.
Since
the V2 runs a near-stock version of Android 4.4.4 KitKat, we get a very
bare-bones, simplistic experience. Saygus has let us know that the device will
be upgradable to Android 5.0 Lollipop in the future. On top of a near stock
build of Android, the V2 is also “root capable,” meaning it comes with an
unlocked bootloader and is relatively easy to gain root access. One more added
benefit to the dual microSD card slots is that not only do they boost the
device for storage purposes, the device also allows you to boot from the
microSD card slot. This allows users more freedom to use multiple operating
systems and ROMs.
In
many ways, it seems as though Saygus is just trying to tick as many boxes off
of the spec sheet as they can. The display size, battery, storage options,
speakers, build quality, wireless streaming capabilities and camera experience
are all very great so far. The V2 is definitely a media device through and
through, and if Saygus can hit the right price point (rumored to be US$ 100 less
than current flagships) the company might go from relatively unknown to a fan
favorite this year.
