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Amanda Connolly
ReporterAmanda Connolly is a reporter for The Next Web, currently based in London. Originally from Ireland, Amanda previously worked in press and ed Amanda Connolly is a reporter for The Next Web, currently based in London. Originally from Ireland, Amanda previously worked in press and editorial at the Web Summit. She’s interested in all things tech, with a particular fondness for lifestyle and creative tech and the spaces where these intersect. Twitter
French manufacturing company Archos teamed up with IT security specialists Sikur to create the secure GranitePhone, which is now available to buy on its dedicated website for a whopping $850.
Designed for people who are more interested in their security than entertainment, it’s both companies’ first leap into the niche secure phone market, with the likes of Blackphone and the Turing Phone.
The GranitePhone has a 5-inch Full HD display, Snapdragon 615 chipset paired with 2GB of RAM, 16GB of built-in storage and a battery capacity of 2,700mAh. The rear camera is 16MP and the front snapper is 8MP.
While the above specs are decidedly mid-ranged, its operating system is where the phone’s unique selling point lies, according to Archos and Sikur. It runs on Sikur’s own Granite OS, a version of Android that is entirely encrypted, which is what GranitePhone is all about.
Promising multiple layers of protection, the OS encrypts everything from calls and messages to anything stored on the cloud, which can be accessed using Sikur’s apps. There’s no mention of what version of Android was used to create Granite OS.
➤ GranitePhone [Archos]
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