Sirin Labs is unveiling the Solarin at an event
on 1st June 2016 in London. A new tech company called Sirin Labs is
launching its first smartphone today. It's called the Solarin, and it's
supposed to be a super high-end phone with super high-end security features
built in. "Solarin incorporates the most advanced privacy technology,
currently unavailable outside the agency world," Sirin Labs writes in its
announcement.
If that doesn't tip you off, Sirin Labs is
making some fairly bold security claims here, which you'll want to take with
some skepticism for the time being — it's a new company, and there's no track
record to judge it by.Sirin Labs says its first phone includes "military
grade" encryption integrated into its hardware. There's also a physical
"Security Switch" that puts the phone into a "shielded
mode" for making secure phone calls. Sirin Labs doesn't elaborate on how
that works exactly, but, presumably, it won't fully shield the phone from
outside signals (although that would make it pretty secure). The phone also
appears to come with some sort of built-in security software.
Those security features come at one heck of a
price: Engadget reports that Sirin Labs will sell the Solarin for £9,500
pre-tax, or just under $14,000 USD. It's seemingly hoping to target wealthy
customers for whom privacy deeply matters.Aside from its privacy features, the
Solarin seems to be a pretty standard, mostly high-end smartphone. It has a
5.5-inch 2K display, a Snapdragon 810 processor, and a 23.8-megapixel camera
with laser-assisted autofocus. That's not quite as high-end as you'd expect when
paying over $10,000 for a phone, but I guess the Solarin's buyer is supposed to
have higher priorities. Sirin Labs is also talking up its support for MU-MIMO
and WiGig Wi-Fi, both of which offer faster speeds in certain situations (and
if your router supports them).
