I never needed to buy a smartphone that had
“military-grade” protection, but not all
smartphone users are alike. Some people may
value insanely complex security – or they just like
the idea of using something that’s “military-
grade.” The Solarin, pictured above, is supposed
to be a high-end phone that has high-end
security features built in. Unfortunately, it
comes from a company that has no track record,
it costs $14,000, and it’s not really as high-end
as you would have hoped.
Sirin Labs is a company that came out of nowhere
to announce this phone, which has components
that likely cost under $200 all together. The
device runs an unknown operating system —
though the image above seems to suggest it’s
Android — and it features military-grade
encryption as well as a “Security Switch” that will
put the phone in a “shielded mode” and let you
make secure phone calls.
“Solarin comes with Zimperium state-of-the-art
mobile threat protection that thwarts the
broadest array of advanced device, network, and
application mobile cyberattacks, without impairing
usability or functionality of a top-of-the-range
smartphone,” the company explained in its press
release . “In addition, Solarin incorporates the
most advanced privacy technology, currently
unavailable outside the agency world. Sirin Labs
partnered with KoolSpan to integrate chip-to-
chip 256-bit AES encryption, the same technology
that militaries around the world use to protect
their communications, offering the strongest
possible mobile privacy protection worldwide.”
The phone’s features aren’t high-end by this
year’s standards, but the Solarin would be a top
of the line device in 2015. It packs a 5.5-inch 2K
display, a Snapdragon 810 processor, 4GB of
RAM, 128GB of storage, a 23.8-megapixel
camera with laser-assisted autofocus, an 8-
megapixel front-facing camera and a 4,040 mAh
battery. It even comes with mesmerizing Wi-Fi
capabilities, including WiGig (802.11ad) multi-
gigabit Wi-Fi technology, and 802.11ac 2×2 MU-
MIMO Wi-Fi support that’ll be useless in most
households.
Of course, if the phone doesn’t run Android then
you’d end up with an overpriced 5.5-inch
handset that can’t run any apps, and all that
military-grade encryption probably isn’t worth it.
But digging deeper on the company’s website,
you discover the phone indeed packs Android
under the hood, though it’s not on the latest
release. Instead, it’ll run Android 5.1.1 out of
the box.
OK, so maybe it’s a little more expensive to make
than some other flagship handsets, but if you
need a $14,000 phone to make sure your chats
and calls are encrypted, then you might have
bigger problems to deal with than coming up with
$14K.
Cc lalasticlala