After a series of many leaks and revelations, Japanese electronics company Sharp Corporation on Tuesday officially launched its much-awaited premium flagship smartphone, called the “Aquos S2” in the Chinese smartphone market. The new Sharp Aquos S2 comes in two variants based on its processing units, RAM and ROM configuration: Sharp Aquos S2 with Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 SoC, 4GB RAM & 64GB storage standard variant, and the Sharp Aquos S2 with Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC, 6GB RAM & 128GB storage high-end Limited edition. The main highlights of the Sharp Aquos S2 are its 5.5-inch Full HD+ bezel-less screen display, dual rear camera setup, a narrow front-mounted fingerprint recognition module and Google’s latest Android 7.1.1 Nougat OS with Smile UX custom UI skin and RoboS AI.
Price and Availability:
As for pricing, The Sharp Aquos S2 smartphone with Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 SoC, 4GB RAM & 64GB storage standard variant has been launched in China with a price tag of CNY 2,499 (approximately Rs. 23,700 or US$ 372), while the Sharp Aquos S2 smartphone with Qualcomm Snapdragon 660 SoC, 6GB RAM & 128GB storage high-end variant has been priced at CNY 3,499 (approximately Rs. 33,200 or US$ 521). Both the variants/models will be up for Pre-orders/ Registration starting today via the e-commerce website, JD.com and the same will be going on sale China starting August 14 (Monday) exclusively via JD.com in Black, White, Blue and Green colour options.
Design:
In terms of design, the Sharp Aquos S2 sports a metal body design with 3D glass on the back and curved metal edges, meaning that the device comes with a relatively premium build quality. The new seamless, curved look of Sharp Aquos S2 is achieved with 3D glass on the back. The smartphone features capacitive navigation buttons and a front-mounted fingerprint identification sensor, that is housed underneath a small capsule-sized physical Home Button of the device. The power-key button and volume up-down keys are all placed on the right-hand edge of the device and a 3.5mm audio jack is placed on the very top edge of the phone. The vertical rear-side dual camera lenses are still positioned exactly the top left corner on the rear panel and one front-facing camera is fixed on the top middle portion of the front panel. The speaker grilles are seen at the bottom edge of the handset along with a USB Type-C charging port sitting in the middle.
Sharp Aquos S2 Specifications and Features:
As far as specifications are concerned, the new Sharp Aquos S2 comes equipped with a 5.5-inch full HD+ (2k) display with a screen resolution of 2040 x 1080 pixels and a scratch resistance 2.5D curved Corning Gorilla Glass coating on top. The display offers a 550 nits brightness and an impressive 135% of RGB colour coverage. The company claims that the Sharp Aquos S2 uses FFD (Free Form Display) technology that enables the manufacturer to make small holes precisely into the screen for front camera and receiver to offer great user experience of best audio quality and front camera experience. This FFD technology takes the screen-to-body ratio of the Sharp Aquos S2 to 84.95 percent. Due to its screen-to-body ratio, the 5.5-inch display panel on the device feels like a 5-inch body.
As we mentioned earlier, the smartphone comes in two different versions, based on their processing unit configurations: one variant with a 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 octa-core processor clubbed with Adreno 508 GPU, 4GB of LPDDR4x RAM, & 64GB of native storage and the other with 2.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon 630 octa-core processor paired with Adreno 512 GPU, 6GB of LPDDR4x RAM & 128GB of internal storage. Talking about its software fronts, the Sharp Aquos S2 runs on Google’s latest Android 7.1.1 Nougat operating system with company’s proprietary Smile UX custom UI skin running on top.
In terms of photography, the Sharp Aquos S2 houses a dual rear camera setup that comes combined with a 12-megapixel primary sensor and an 8-megapixel secondary sensor for capturing depth information. The rear camera features include an f/1.75 aperture, 1.4μm pixel size, Phase Detection AutoFocus (PDAF), and a dual-tone LED flash module. On the front, the smartphone features an 8-megapixel front-facing shooter with an f/2.0 aperture for capturing selfies and making video calls.
On the connectivity front, the Sharp Aquos S2 is a dual-SIM smartphone that accepts two Nano-SIM cards. Apart from this, the device also offers various connectivity options including 4G VoLTE, Wi-Fi 802.11 ac (2.4/5.0 GHz), Wi-Fi hotspot, Bluetooth 4.2, GPS/A-GPS/GLONASS, NFC, a 3.5mm audio jack and a USB Type-C port for super-fast charging and data transfer. Sensors on the device include a Proximity sensor, Ambient Light Sensor, Accelerometer, Fingerprint (front-mounted), Gyroscope and E-compass sensor. On the battery front, the Sharp Aquos S2 packs a decent 3,020mAh battery with Quick Charge 3.0 technology support for fast charging. Dimensionally, the handset measures 141.8 x 72.04 x 7.9 mm and weights 140 grams.
