Sharp is a highly admired smartphone-making company in Japan. The Aquos Crystal is its first smartphone entry into the U.S. market. Sharp and its rival, Sony Corp., are the Japanese counterpart of Apple and Samsung in the U.S.
The Aquos Crystal is billed as a budget-friendly smartphone designed with the "edge-to-edge" display concept. Its S-CG Silicon LCD HD screen of 5 inches and 720x1280 pixels shows no surrounding bezel, creating an impression that the device came straight from a science fiction movie. The Aquos Crystal runs Android KitKat and is powered by Qualcomm Snapdragon 400 of 1.2GHz. Other features would include a RAM of 1.5GB, 8GB built-in storage (up to 128GB through a microSD card), rear camera of 8 megapixels, front camera of 1.2 megapixel, 2040mAh battery, and various connectivity options (Wi-Fi 802.11b/g/n, Bluetooth 4.0, Micro-USB, 3G, and 4G LTE).
The Aquos Crystal's rear camera includes notable features such as shutter detect, sequential shots, Panorama, HDR, night catch, framing advisor, and scenery modes. One of the smartphone's most striking features is the location of its front camera. Similar to the Sony Xperia ZL, the Aquos Crystal's front camera is found at the bottom part of the handset's front panel.
The smartphone, with a build dimension of 131x67x10mm and weight of 141 grams, boasts of a battery life that can lasts up to 13 hours of talk time. Sharp has even added some impressive audio features much to the delight of Aquos Crystal smartphone users. These would include LiveStage signal processing that delivers a lifelike listening experience via headphone and Clari-Fi audio restoration technology by Harman. Furthermore, it boasts of the Clip Now feature that allows the user to easily take screenshots by making a quick swipe and instantly save them using an embedded URL for quick sharing.
It remains to be the seen how the U.S. market will receive the foreign device knowing how Softbank, Sprint's parent company based in Japan, is hoping to gain a strong following in worldwide markets.
"U.S. consumers have long trusted the Sharp Aquos brand to deliver exceptional picture quality. We are thrilled to introduce the first smartphone from Sharp's groundbreaking Aquos line of devices to be available in the U.S. with the launch of the Aquos Crystal Smartphone in the U.S. and Japan," said Yoshisuke Hasegawa, Sharp's Executive Managing Officer.
The Aquos Crystal's availability date is yet to be announced. It is retailed at $239.99 without contract. Sprint is pairing the device with its prepaid brands, Boost Mobile (White) and Virgin Mobile (Black) at the price of $149.99.
