Hands-on with the feature-filled Saygus V2

Saygus isn’t a brand we normally think of when talking smartphones, but that might change soon. The company is here at CES with a new smartphone they call a “super smartphone,” so naturally, we have to take a look at it. The Saygus V2 smartphone was just announced a few days ago, and we scored some hands-on time with the device. Is it the multimedia powerhouse everyone is expecting it to be? Let’s find out!

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 13MP 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 3.5mm 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. We know what you’re thinking: Shouldn’t this device have a 2K screen if it’s considered a “multimedia powerhouse?” While that may be true for some, we’ve enjoyed this screen so far. The colors are bright and viewing angles are great, which will give users a great multimedia experience.

Under the hood, the V2 has a 2.5GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor with an Adreno 330 GPU, all backed by 3GB 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. We’ve already touched on the Harman Kardon front-facing speakers and the fingerprint scanner, but those are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the real draw of this device.

What’s likely the biggest selling point of the V2 is the fact that it can house up to 320GB of external storage. The device has room for two microSD card slots (up to 128GB each) on top of the included 64GB 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 3100mAh 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 21MP rear-facing camera with a dual-LED flash, OIS and auto-focus. As mentioned above, the 13MP 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 $100 less than current flagships) the company might go from relatively unknown to a fan favorite this year.