Back in August 2014, Sharp released the Aquos Crystal, a stunner of a phone that nearly said goodbye to bezels. Fast-forward two years, and the company continues its almost bezel-free life with the Aquos Mini.
The Aquos Mini continues the design philosophy the Aquos line of phones is now known for, almost eschewing bezels around the top and sides of the phone. Because of this, even with the 4.7-inch, 1,920 x 1,080p resolution display, the Aquos Mini is only slightly taller than the iPhone SE, a cool feat of engineering on Sharp’s part.
Possibly because the bezels are so small, Sharp engineered the sides of the phone to be pressure-sensitive. As such, the phone performs different basic actions depending on how you squeeze its sides. Furthermore, the Aquos Mini features what Sharp calls Emopa, an interesting notification system that uses two breathing lights at the bottom corners.
Going back to that panel, Sharp shows off its display prowess by having the Aquos Mini dynamically adjust its refresh rate, which can go from 1Hz when idling to as high as 120Hz. The high refresh rate allows for smoother animations when moving throughout the operating system, as well as reduced blur from residual images.
Elsewhere, the Aquos Mini is powered by a hexa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 808 processor and 3GB RAM — a solid combination that should get you in and out of applications smoothly enough — with a 2,800mAh battery keeping the lights on.
Running Android 6.0 Marshmallow out of the box, the Aquos Mini packs a 13-megapixel rear camera with an f/1.9 aperture. Because of how the phone is designed, the 5MP selfie shooter sits below the display. Finally, the Aquos Mini makes room for an earphone, which is noteworthy, since the original Aquos Crystal’s bezels were so small that the phone depended on bone conduction to relay sound to your ear.
Unfortunately for everyone outside of Japan, it doesn’t look like the Aquos Mini will be sold outside of the island nation, with the phone selling for JPY 44,800 ($436) through Rakuten.
