CES isn't really known for smartphone unveilings though this year's edition did see a few announcements from players like Asus, Lenovo and LG. However, it was Saygus, a fairly unknown name, which hogged all the headlines with its V2 (V Squared) smartphone that boasts of top-end specifications and unique features.
We got a chance to spend some time with engineering samples of the phone and here's what we think...
The Saygus V2 is a well built smartphone with its kevlar shell, magnesium frame and aluminium rim. At first glance, we even thought its a ruggedised phone! It won't win any awards for slimness but having said that, it doesn't really feel too bulky at 141gram. The phone comes in white and black back panel options and the panel has matte finish with a textured design pattern and some additional graphics.
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| Saygus V2, the phone with 320GB storage |
The back panel is removable and hides the battery compartment that houses a 3100mAh removable battery, a sim card slot and two microSD card slots each supporting up to 128GB capacity cards. The samples we played with were sealed so we could not take a look.
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| Saygus V2, the phone with 320GB storage |
The right edge of the phone sports all hardware buttons(volume rocker, power and camera shutter) and a fingerprint sensor as well as a 60GHz mobile beaming transmitter. The buttons are made of metal and offer good tactile feedback. We weren't able to test the fingerprint sensor but we like its unique positioning.
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| Saygus V2, the phone with 320GB storage |
The phone is IPx7 certified for protection against water and can be submerged in up to 1 metre of water for 30 minutes.
The bottom edge houses the 3.5mm headset jack and a micro-USB port while the top has an infrared sensor.
At the front, the phone is slightly curved towards the bottom and you also see the big Harmon Kardon speaker at this place (the other speaker is near the ear piece).
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| Saygus V2, the phone with 320GB storage |
The display panel has very thin bezels and houses a 5-inch full HD (1920x1080p) borderless screen. The panel is protected by the latest Gorilla Glass 4. The display looks vibrant and bright and offers wide viewing angles.
Saygus V2 sports a 21MP rear camera with dual-LED flash and a 13MP front-facing camera, also accompanied by a flash. Saygus clams the V2 is the first smartphone to feature Optical Image Stabilisation with both the front as well as rear cameras.
The phone is powered by a 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor and 3GB RAM. It has 64GB internal storage (not all of it is usable). You can use two 128GB microSD cards expanding the capacity to 320GB, which is the highest at this time.
The phone runs Android 4.4 KitKat and is upgradable to Android 5.0 Lollipop. Android geeks would love the fact that it comes with an unlocked boot loader making the phone easy to root and install different ROMs as it even allows users to boot from the microSD card slot.
Saygus is based in Salt Lake City, Utah, US and currently has no plans to bring the device to India. The phone will ship in Q1 2015 at a price that is 20% lesser compared to top flagships. The executives at the Saygus booth hinted at a close to $700 pricing for the V2 so don't expect it to be the next OnePlus One.
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