Sharp is back with a successor to the bezel-less Aquos Crystal mid-ranger from last year. The Sharp Aquos Crystal 2 boosts the screen size to 5.2", adds basic waterproofing and mobile wallet support. The phone will launch on Softbank in Japan in mid-July, it's not clear when it will hop over to the US.
The Aquos Crystal 2 brings a bigger display (S-PureLED), but keeps the resolution at 720p. The phone has gotten a bit bigger – 136 x 71 x 11mm, 154g – since Sharp couldn’t really make the screen bigger at the expense of the bezel as there isn’t much bezel to speak of.
This means things like the selfie camera (2.1MP in this case) have to be moved below the screen. The main camera is still and 8MP shooter, but the Crystal 2 comes with more RAM (2GB) and more storage (16GB). It's powered by the same Snapdragon 400 MSM8926 chipset though.
The phone has some waterproofing, enough to survive splashes but not submersion. An interesting addition is Grip Magic, a sensor on the side of the device that detect touches.
Connectivity includes LTE, HD Voice, 2.4GHz Wi-Fi b/g/n, NFC, a mobile wallet system and 1-seg mobile TV. Despite the increase in size the battery capacity hasn’t budged, it's still at 2,030mAh. However, Sharp claims the new display panel is more power efficient while also being brighter.
