The Saygus V2 Super Phone now supports Australian LTE bands and will ship to Australia

Smaller players are beginning to make waves in the mobile hardware market place, OnePlus is probably one of the largest, but a new contender has emerged – Saygus.

Saygus launched the Saygus V2 smartphone at CES this year and it immediately attracted a great deal of attention for the absolutely amazing spec list. Including top-tier components in the V2, but keeping the price affordable, Saygus is on track to build a following amongst smartphone users world wide.

Initially the Saygus V2 wasn’t supporting Australian LTE Bands, and initially they weren’t shipping to Australia. The team at Saygus certainly heard the feedback from Australia and spoke with their antenna team who have now addressed the international LTE Band issue adding support for Band 28 (700Mhz), as well as Band 40 (Optus 2300MHz). The Saygus team have also now added international shipping to Australia.

Saygus will be selling the phone in a variety of colours – there’s Black, White and Pink up for pre-order at the moment on their store but they have Red and Yellow versions in their Press kit. The Fractal pattern on the rear of the phone is a visualisation of their antenna design which lets them support so many different bands – again, it’s impressive.

I played with the Saygus V2 at their booth here at MWC and it’s a nice phone. It’s still not ready to ship but it’s looking almost complete. The rear of the phone is covered in kevlar and has a really nice feel to it reminiscent of the pre-Moto Motorola phones. . They didn’t have the Yellow version available at the booth here at MWC but I did manage to have a hands-on with the Black, White and Pink version, as well as the Red (Salmon) coloured one, though it’s not yet up for pre-order. Personally I’d be almost inclined to go with the White for the interesting fractal design which ‘pops’ a little more on the rear.

The sides of the phone have a very industrial looking set of hardware buttons – including a dedicated hardware camera button. There’s a fingerprint scanner built-in which allows you to use any of your ten fingers to swipe for biometric security.

The phone ships with Android 4.4 – and that’s a conscious decision. They’ve monitored the launch of Lollipop and noted the issues which have befallen some handset and have taken a cautious approach to updating the phone before the software is really ready. But when it comes, it will come fast because the Saygus V2 is stock Android and there’s even options to have root access for developers – that’s right, it’s developer friendly.

But it’s not just phones that Saygus will be selling, they’re looking to being supplying premium accessories for their handset as well. They already have a premium set of earphones for the Saygus V2 and they’ll be adding a wireless video receiver as well to allow you to play games or mirror your screen on a TV.

The spec list is long and impressive by anyones standards. If you’re interested in the specs – and why wouldn’t you be? The Saygus V2 is a monster. I’ve included the full spec list because it’s just that impressive – remember it has not one, but two microSDXC card slots to give you up to 256GB of external storage + the 64GB of onboard storage:

• 5” 1920 x 1080 display (445 ppi) Full HD
  Sunlight Viewable Screen*
  Edge-to-edge Borderless Screen*
  Front and Back Light Sensors – for enhanced screen lighting control
  Corning® Gorilla® Glass 4
• 2.5Ghz Quad Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processor
• 3GB RAM
• 64GB On-board storage + DUAL MicroSDXC Card slots up to 128GB each
• Cameras (includes Hardware Camera Shutter Button):
• 21 MP Rear Facing with Optical Image Stabilization*, Auto Focus, and Dual LED Flash
• 13 MP Front Facing with Optical Image Stabilization and Auto Focus
• Audio:
• Built-in Stereo Speakers
• Harman Kardon Sound Technology w/ 3D Audio* for video
• Harman Kardon Speakers and Mics*
• 3 Microphones
• Noise Cancelling Cypher Sound Technology*
• GPS, Gyroscope, Accelerometer, Compass, Proximity, Ambient Light
• Dual-band Wi-Fi (2.4G/5G) 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac, Bluetooth 4.0, IR Transmitter, 60GHz Wireless Gaming and Mobile Beaming
• micro-USB 2.0/3.0 – Device, Host, OTG and MHL (HDMI, 3.5mm Stereo Audio and Microphone Jack, Biometric Fingerprint Side Scanner*
• Radios:
• GSM: Quad band(850/900/1800/1900MHz)
• CDMA: 850/1900MHz
• UMTS: Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 8
• LTE: Bands 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 12, 13, 17, 18, 19, 20, 25, 26, 28, 29, 40
• Other Features:
• New-to-market Waterproofing Technology* – IPX7 Rating
• Armored Online Mobile Security*
• Root Access Available (“developer phone”)
• Multi-Boot (supports booting from MicroSD card)*
• 3100 mAh Removable Battery – with Wireless Qi Charging Built-in
• Android 4.4.4 (KitKat)
• 67 x 137 x 9.7mm @ 141 grams

Availability isn’t something that’s known yet. Nor is the way they’ll deliver the phones to overseas customers – and remember you’ll have to pay extra for shipping when it’s ready. What you can do is pre-order if you’re ready for US$599, or sign up to their News Flash on the site to potentially take advantage of special pre-order offers.

We’re looking into getting a Saygus V2 for review when they’re ready to go, but from the initital look at the phone it’s going to be a monster.