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Privacy has always been a concern for most smartphone owners, so taking a cue from that, the French phone manufacturer Archos has collaborated with a lesser-known Brazilian IT security company Sikur to come up with the security-centric GranitePhone. The unlocked phone can be purchased on its standalone website for the whopping sum of $850.

Here’s what you get for that cash: The GranitePhone features a 5-inch 1080p display and is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 615 SoC coupled with 2GB of RAM. It has 16GB of internal storage and a 2,700mAh battery. The phone has a 16MP rear camera and an 8MP front-facing camera.

Not impressed? Sure, these are mostly mundane features that can be found on many midrange smartphones, but the GranitePhone’s main selling point is its highly secure Android-based Granite OS. As touted by Archos and Sikur, the GranitePhone’s Granite OS is pretty much like regular Android, but it’s fully encrypted, has no back doors according to the company, and doesn’t compromise on user privacy in any way. It has not been revealed yet on what version of Android the Granite OS is based.

The Granite OS doesn’t store any data on the device. Instead, it provides multi-layer security and stores all of the usual data (calls, messages, and much more) in the cloud, which can only be accessed via Sikur’s app. Although the device has taken a lot of inspiration from Android, it lacks access to Google’s Play Store, meaning that you’ll really need to care about security to want this thing.

Other than its hi-fi security features, the GranitePhone doesn’t offer much for its hefty price tag. Other midrange smartphones like the Moto G also come with similar hardware specs, but at a much lower price tag. GranitePhone is not the first device that comes with security-centric features, either; the BlackPhone and the Turing Phone have been in the market for quite a while.

The main competition would come from the newer Turing phone, which has higher-end specs and costs $649. The makers of GranitePhone are of a view that users would appreciate security more than features, so many of them would rather go for a highly secured GranitePhone than any other feature-loaded smartphone. Does that describe you? What do you think about this new phone? Would you be cool with spending $850 for a security-centric smartphone?

Read more http://www.extremetech.com/mobile/216143-security-centric-granitephone-by-archos-becomes-official-costs-850