Sharp Aquos Crystal Hands-On: No Bezel, All Beauty

Sharp Aquos Crystal Hands-On: No Bezel, All Beauty

Japan builds phones differently to the Western world. We typically want better performance, more dazzling displays and faster processors. Japan just makes the thing look awesome. And not many have done it better than Sharp.

Sharp’s new Aquos Crystal is the most recent example of this design philosophy. But this time, this smartphone eye candy won’t stay landlocked to its home country; it’s heading to the US for $US240 with no contract, and we’re hopeful that it will be available in other countries too. While that price is unexpectedly low, the real headturner is the edge-to-edge, 5-inch 720p display. As we’ve previously mentioned, this smartphone is virtually bezel-less — virtually. There actually is a bit of a bezel around the rim, but it’s a stunning sight nonetheless: the screen stretches to the top of the device and seemingly into infinity.

The display is undoubtedly the coolest part of this phone. I mean, just look at that thing. As for that missing microphone that’s usually chilling up top, a Sharp representative told me they use a direct wave receiver, which actually vibrates the screen next to your ear to transmit sound. No, you don’t have to turn the phone upside down to make a call. However, Sharp did put its 2MP front-facing camera on the bottom, so selfies may be a teensie bit more difficult.

As for the rest of the device, the back uses a plastic, dimpled material that feels a little cheap but isn’t as aggressive as Samsung’s Galaxy S5. The Aquos Crystal is pretty comfortable to hold, though the rounded back makes it surprisingly a little thicker than other 5-inch smartphones. The rim of the phone is plastic as well, though it has a metal-like finish.

Traversing through the software, I purposefully tried to make accidental touches around the edges to see if the absence of bezel caused usability problems. It never happened once. The Aquos Crystal runs native Android 4.4.2 with a few preinstalled apps, including Clip Now, a fun but somewhat unnecessary app that lets you capture screenshots and generate a shareable URL by swiping across the very top of the device.

All that said, this isn’t a premium handset, at least not by American consumer standards. This smartphone only packs a Snapdragon 400 processor, 1.5GB of RAM, and a measly 8GB of storage (although a MicroSD slot is available). The camera is just OK. Its eight megapixel rear-facing camera feels a little too sharp due to either a mediocre lens or mediocre software, but is pretty good on exposure.

Sharp Aquos Crystal Hands-On: No Bezel, All Beauty

Of course, these middle-of-the-road guts make a lot of sense when you consider its bargain pricing. It even still comes with Sprint’s particular suite of services including Spark LTE — Sprint’s tri-band LTE network — and Harmon Kardon audio processing. There’s also Apps Pass, which is a different billing approach for Sprint. For $US5, this subscription gives you access to “premium” apps. At the demo, these included productivity and gaming apps such as Microsoft Office Suite 7, GT Racing 2 and AccuWeather Platinum. The Apps Pass team hopes to have up to 150 choices when the service launches on August 29 with as many as 300 apps once the service is in full swing. Users also receive $US5 every month as in-app credit, essentially nullifying the subscription price.

Apart from its flashy new addition to its hardware lineup (although the carrier has yet to announce a sale date), Sprint is also taking a bold new stance on pricing. Yesterday, the carrier announced a new family plan that offers double the data than its competitors, giving 20GB of data for four lines for $US160, and if you sign up between August 22 and the end of September, that price dips to just $US100.

Sharp Aquos Crystal Hands-On: No Bezel, All Beauty

Sharp Aquos Crystal Hands-On: No Bezel, All Beauty

Sharp Aquos Crystal Hands-On: No Bezel, All Beauty

Sharp Aquos Crystal Hands-On: No Bezel, All Beauty

Sharp Aquos Crystal Hands-On: No Bezel, All Beauty

Sharp Aquos Crystal Hands-On: No Bezel, All Beauty


The Cheapest NBN 50 Plans

It’s the most popular NBN speed in Australia for a reason. Here are the cheapest plans available.

At Gizmodo, we independently select and write about stuff we love and think you'll like too. We have affiliate and advertising partnerships, which means we may collect a share of sales or other compensation from the links on this page. BTW – prices are accurate and items in stock at the time of posting.