Over the last several months, we’ve seen a ton of leaks about the upcoming Galaxy S21 FE. The leaks have given us a good look at the affordable flagship’s design and an overview of its specifications. We’ve also learned that Samsung might unveil the device alongside the Galaxy Z Fold 3, Galaxy Z Flip 3, and the Galaxy Watch 4 series in August. However, recent reports suggest that Samsung might not launch the Fan Edition device in August due to supply constraints.
According to South Korean publications Financial News and Maekyeong, Samsung initially planned to launch the Galaxy S21 FE in August this year. However, due to the global semiconductor shortage, the company has pushed the launch to the fourth quarter. The reports further reveal that Samsung may also switch the Snapdragon 888 on the phone with an Exynos chip because Qualcomm is facing production setbacks.
Early last month reports alleged that Samsung had shelved the hotly anticipated affordable flagship altogether. But the company later released a statement claiming that it hadn’t decided to suspend production of the Galaxy S21 FE. It now seems like the company will go ahead with the launch, albeit a bit later in the year. Currently, it’s believed that the device will hit the market sometime in October, but we have no official word from Samsung yet.
While the reports don’t specify the Exynos SoC Samsung will use on the Galaxy S21 FE, we believe it could be the Exynos 2100. The reports further add that Samsung might end up launching the phone in the US and Europe only, with a limited number of units on offer.
At the moment, we have no further details about Samsung’s plans regarding the Galaxy S21 FE. We’ll make sure to let you know as soon as we learn more.
Featured image: Leaked render of the Galaxy S21 FE
When Samsung launched the Galaxy S20 FE last year, it said the new Fan Edition lineup was a tribute to Galaxy fans that set “a new standard of making uncompromising flagship innovations accessible to as many people as possible.” During the launch event, the company also promised it would launch “Fan Editions of our flagship devices in the years to come.”
So when Samsung reached out to send over a review unit of the new Galaxy Tab S7 FE, I expected to receive an affordable version of the Galaxy Tab S7 Plus with perhaps a few missing features. However, the device I’ve been using for the last ten days is anything but that.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE only has a total of three features in common with the flagship Galaxy Tab S7+ — the display size, battery capacity, and One UI — and in my opinion, it doesn’t deserve the FE moniker. Samsung should have just called it the Galaxy Tab S7 Lite (as previous leaks and rumors suggested) because the “FE” tag will only mislead fans.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE: Specifications
Specification
Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE
Dimensions & Weight
185.0 x 284.8 x 6.3mm
608g
Display
12.4-inch FHD+ TFT LCD
2560 x 1600 (244 PPI)
16:10 aspect ratio
60Hz refresh rate
SoC
Qualcomm Snapdragon 750G
Adreno 619
RAM & Storage
4GB + 64GB
6GB + 128GB
microSD card slot (up to 1TB)
Battery & Charging
10,090mAh
45W fast charging support
15W charger included
Security
Face unlock
Rear Camera
8MP, AF
Video: 1080p @30fps
Front Camera
5MP
Video: 1080p @30fps
Port(s)
USB 3.2 Gen 1 Type-C
Audio
Dual speakers tuned by AKG
Dolby Atmos support
Connectivity
4G LTE
802.11 a/b/g/n/ac dual-band Wi-Fi
Bluetooth 5.0
GPS, GLONASS, Beidou, Galileo
Software
One UI 3.1 based on Android 11
Other Features
S Pen (not active, <30ms latency)
Samsung DeX support
6-month Clip Studio Paint subscription
30-day Canva Pro trial
Noteshelf
About this review: I received the 6GB/128GB version of the Galaxy Tab S7 FE (LTE) from Samsung India for this review. Samsung had no inputs in any part of this review.
Design & Display
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE looks quite like the flagship Galaxy Tab S7+. It has a similar metal chassis with square edges, a tiny pill-shaped camera module in the top right corner on the back, antenna lines on the left and right edges, and Samsung branding in the top left corner. The only obvious difference between the two is that the Galaxy Tab S7 FE doesn’t feature a glass strip next to the camera module. That’s because the flagship model came with an active S Pen that charged wirelessly when placed on the glass strip. Since the Galaxy Tab S7 FE’s S Pen is just a glorified stylus, Samsung has removed the glass strip from the tablet.
Over on the front, the tablet features a 12.4-inch TFT LCD (2560 x 1600) that has a 16:10 aspect ratio, 60Hz refresh rate, and minimal bezels on all sides. While the display is great for content consumption and gets bright enough for outdoor use, it’s a bit underwhelming for the asking price. I expected to see a 60Hz AMOLED panel or a high refresh rate LCD at this price point, but that’s sadly not the case.
The power button, volume rocker, and SIM tray on the Galaxy Tab S7 FE all reside on the top edge, while the USB Type-C port can be found on the right edge. The tablet features a dual speaker setup tuned by AKG, another downgrade from the flagship models. It features the same proprietary keyboard connector at the bottom edge, which is compatible with the keyboard accessories designed for the Galaxy Tab S7+. The tablet features a front-facing camera, which resides in the center of the top bezel.
Overall, the Galaxy Tab S7 FE feels just as premium as the flagship Galaxy Tab S7+. But it lacks a few crucial features you would expect to see on a tablet that costs over ₹45,000 (~$600), such as a fingerprint scanner. Yeah, you read that right. The Galaxy Tab S7 FE doesn’t have a fingerprint scanner. Software-enabled Face Unlock is the only mode of biometric authentication on the tablet — and we all know how secure that is.
Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE: Performance & Battery Life
While the Fan Edition label might lead you to believe the Galaxy Tab S7 FE packs a flagship SoC, it doesn’t. The tablet features Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 750G, which is a mid-range chipset found on affordable devices like the OnePlus Nord CE. The SoC is paired with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage on the base model, while the higher-end variant gets 6GB of RAM and 128GB of storage. Since I recently reviewed the OnePlus Nord CE, which also packs the same SoC, I was expecting the tablet to perform just as well, if not better. But it didn’t.
Performance-wise, the Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 FE is just good enough for light workloads and media consumption. So if you’re planning on getting some serious work done or play demanding games on the tablet, then you should probably look elsewhere. While using the tablet over the last two weeks, I noticed a couple of issues with the Galaxy Tab S7 FE that may turn buyers away. The tablet stuttered quite often when I had more than a couple of Chrome tabs open for work, it froze while playing demanding games like COD: Mobile at medium to high graphics settings, and it took far too long to switch to DeX mode.
While playing videos on YouTube, the tablet worked fine as long as I stuck to the auto or 1080p video quality preset. But the video stuttered as I switched to a higher quality preset. It’s also worth noting that the tablet’s speakers, while pretty decent for the most part, crackled at high volume in some situations. Here’s a sample:
I’m not sure if the issue is limited to my review unit or not.
If you care about synthetic benchmarks, here’s a quick look at the results posted by the Galaxy Tab S7 FE:
In Geekbench 5, the tablet got a single-core score of 650 and a multi-core score of 1,882. In 3DMark’s Sling Shot Extreme OpenGL test, it got an overall score of 2,320, and it scored 33.3 in Browserbench’s Speedometer 2.0 web benchmark. In Androbench, the tablet delivered sequential read speeds of 899.63MB/s and sequential write speeds of 487.62MB/s.
I have no complaints about the Galaxy Tab S7 FE’s battery life. It performed reasonably well, with a four hour Netflix binge session at full brightness consuming around 50 percent of the battery. While doing only browser-based tasks, the tablet lasted just about two days on a single charge.
While the tablet’s battery performance was decent, its charging speeds were atrocious. That’s because it ships with a 15W charger in the box, even though it supports 45W fast charging. The charger took well over three hours to charge the 10,090mAh battery on the tablet from 0-100%, which is rather unacceptable. I’m disappointed that Samsung still doesn’t ship a faster charger with its tablets, but that was to be expected as the company ships the same 15W brick with its flagship Galaxy Tab S7.
S Pen & Keyboard Folio
As mentioned earlier, the S Pen that comes with the Galaxy Tab S7 FE isn’t the same as the one you get with the flagship models. It’s just a glorified stylus that doesn’t support any of the premium features you get with the active S Pen. In addition to that, it doesn’t offer the same 9ms ultra-low latency as the active S Pen you get with the Galaxy Note 20 or Galaxy Tab S7 series. Instead, it promises <30ms latency, which isn’t all that great for writing or drawing.
The keyboard folio case for the Galaxy Tab S7 FE is also a downgrade. While it’s similar to the keyboard folio for the Galaxy Tab S7 in terms of design and build quality, it doesn’t feature a trackpad. This makes working on the tab a bit annoying, as you have to use the touch screen for all the tasks you would otherwise perform with a mouse or trackpad.
Conclusion
I don’t see which “uncompromising flagship innovations” the Galaxy Tab S7 FE makes more accessible for buyers. It’s just a mid-range tablet with a large screen and a large battery, and it fails to justify the Fan Edition moniker. In my opinion, Samsung should’ve offered the Galaxy Tab S7 FE with an older flagship chip. That would’ve addressed the performance issues while keeping the cost low.
Speaking of which, the Galaxy Tab S7 FE’s price tag also makes it hard to recommend. You can get a regular iPad or the iPad Air for a similar price. Both of those options undoubtedly offer better performance and they’re significantly better tablets overall. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S7 is also a much better purchase, and it’s often available at attractive discounts that bring its price down to the same level.
I honestly expected Samsung to offer users better value with its Fan Edition devices. I hope upcoming Fan Edition phones or tablets aren’t as disappointing as the Galaxy Tab S7 FE.
Twitch now lets you join watch parties from an Android or iOS device starting today. Watch Parties launched late last year and lets streamers host viewing parties for movies and TV shows that are available on Amazon Prime, but until today, they could only be joined from a desktop.
Watch Parties are now rolling out on an Android or iOS device near you.
It’s important to keep in mind that Twitch streamers and viewers who want to watch along will need to have an Amazon Prime subscription in order to join the party. However, you don’t need to be a Twitch affiliate or partner to start a watch party. When joining a watch party for the first time, you’ll be asked to authorize the device you’re on for Prime Video playback.
Virtual watch parties have become quite popular thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic pushing people to find socially distant ways to watch their favorite movies and TV shows with their friends. Twitch has taken quite a while to get watch parties working on mobile, though its parent, Amazon, has yet to roll out watch parties support in the Prime Video app for mobile users.
Watch parties in Twitch is an awesome feature and one that a lot of people will end up using at some point. They’ve already become quite popular on Twitch, with many variety streamers taking to hosting them with their fans live on stream. There’s even a dedicated section for watch parties so that you can pick any random streamer to join and watch with if you’re feeling bored.
Back in October, Google released an update to the Google Photos app for iOS that added a homescreen widget. This widget cycles through the “Memories” albums that Photos automatically generates. On Android, Memories are visible at the top of the “Photos” tab, but Google is preparing to let users see them on the Android homescreen through a widget — just like on iOS.
An APK teardown can often predict features that may arrive in a future update of an application, but it is possible that any of the features we mention here may not make it in a future release. This is because these features are currently unimplemented in the live build and may be pulled at any time by the developers in a future build.
Version 5.49 of the Google Photos app is rolling out on Android, and a quick look through the APK reveals that a widget is being prepared. New strings reference a “Google Photos widget” that lets you “rediscover moments from Google Photos.”
<string name="photos_widget_account_not_found">Account not found</string>
<string name="photos_widget_description">Rediscover moments from Google Photos</string>
<string name="photos_widget_label">Your memories</string>
<string name="photos_widget_loading">Loading…</string>
<string name="photos_widget_no_logged_in_account">Please add your Google Account before setting up the Google Photos widget</string>
<string name="photos_widget_one_year_ago_title">1 year ago</string>
<string name="photos_widget_select_an_account">Select an account</string>
<string name="photos_widget_this_week_subtitle">This week</string>
While the strings and widget preview image suggest the Memories album will only show photos from this week last year, it’s possible that the widget will behave the same way as it does on iOS. That is, you’ll be able to add a widget that cycles through all of your auto-generated Memories albums.
Although the requisite receiver and activities are listed in the app’s Manifest, I’m unable to actually add the widget to the homescreen as it seems to be dynamically disabled. Perhaps Google will enable the feature through a future update or by toggling a server-side flag. Once the widget becomes available in the Google Photos app for Android, we’ll let you know. You can download the latest version of the app from Google Play, though version 5.49 may not have rolled out to everyone just yet.
Ever since the inception of Microsoft’s Surface line of products, they were meant to be showcase devices. Like Google’s Nexus (and now Pixel) family, Surface devices are supposed to show other companies what can and should be done with a Windows PC. The original Surface Pro arguably kicked the convertible market into gear. In the years since, the line has expanded to all kinds of devices, but in many ways, that idea is still true. Microsoft makes Surface devices in different kinds of form factors and price points, and they’re all great PCs. If you’re looking to buy a new PC, we’ve rounded up the best Surface devices you can get for different use cases.
Rather than picking a best overall device, we’ll be focusing on a few different categories, so you can easily choose what’s best for you. Everyone has different use cases, and no device can be ideal for everyone, so hopefully you’ll find the right one for you on this list.
Best laptop: Surface Laptop 4
Whether it’s school or office work, the Surface Laptop 4 is a fantastic device for all kinds of work settings. It comes in both Intel and AMD flavors, but we’d recommend going with Intel. Microsoft chose to use last-generation AMD processors versus the latest ones from Intel, which leaves the former at a disadvantage in terms of performance. However, the AMD variant promises better battery life, and it should be fast enough for most people anyway. You can get it with up to 32GB of RAM (16GB for AMD) and a 1TB removable SSD.
It uses an all-metal build, but the 13.5-inch model can also be had with an Alcantara-covered base. This gives your palms a warm and soft place to rest on compared to metal. The display has a 201PPI in both sizes, and it’s a touchscreen with pen support, though it’s probably not the most convenient device to use it on since it’s a clamshell. It has Windows Hello facial recognition, too.
As for what size you should get, it’s a matter of preference. The smaller models come with an Intel Core i5 or an AMD Ryzen 5, which aren’t as fast but offer more battery life. Plus, they’re lighter and easier to carry. The larger models have more powerful processors, but battery life is slightly shorter.
With a high-resolution PixelSense touch display, high-end processors, and a premium build, the Surface Laptop 4 is great for all kinds of work. There are two screen sizes and four colors to choose from depending on your taste, and you can even get it with an Alcantara cover for added comfort.
Microsoft has two premium Surface tablets that are actually very different — the Surface Pro 7 and the Surface Pro X. There’s also the Surface Pro 7+, but that’s only available for businesses. While they have pros and cons to each, the Surface Pro X has some advantages courtesy of the ARM-based Microsoft SQ2 chipset inside. For one thing, it supports LTE, which makes it far more useful if you work on the go. It also includes other advantages that come with having an ARM processor, like better power efficiency and instant wake.
Another advantage of the Surface Pro X is its design. The Surface Pro 7 is still virtually similar to the Surface Pro 4 from 2015. The Surface Pro X has thinner bezels, a larger screen, and a slimmer chassis, making it a more portable machine. It’ll probably perform below the Intel Core i7 on the Surface Pro 7, but it shouldn’t be a problem if you’re just using it for work. If you do prefer the Pro 7, though, you can find it here.
The Surface Pro X has a light and modern design, a 13-inch high-resolution display, and it's powered by a Microsoft SQ2 chipset. It supports LTE for on-the-go connectivity and it offers 15 hours of battery life thanks to its ARM-based chipset.
if you’re looking for a new tablet or convertible to use for work, the Surface Pro 7+ is a great choice. Microsoft didn’t call it the Surface Pro 8, but there are still some notable upgrades packed into this refresh. First and foremost, it has Intel 11th-generation Tiger Lake processors, which are much better than the 10th-generation equivalents. That’s also thanks to the new Iris Xe Graphics, a new GPU that’s significantly more powerful than the Iris Plus Graphics in previous generations. It’s actually close to some entry-level dedicated GPUs, like the Nvidia GeForce MX350.
On top of that, the Surface Pro 7+ now has a removable SSD, similar to the Pro X, a larger battery, and you can get it with LTE. That makes it a great machine for businesses. LTE connectivity means you can work anywhere, and the removable SSD makes it easy to destroy potentially sensitive information before getting rid of the device.
Because it’s meant for business users, you won’t find the Surface Pro 7+ at every retailer, but you can get it at B&H using the link below.
The Surface Pro 7+ is a big upgrade over the Pro 7, featuring Intel Tiger Lake processors with Iris Xe Graphics. It also has a removable SSD, LTE connectivity, and a larger battery, making it great for business users.
The Surface lineup doesn’t include a typical gaming PC, but the Book 3 is close enough. It features 10th-generation Intel Core processors up to a Core i7-1165G7, and either an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 for the 13.5-inch variant or a GTX 1660 Ti for the 15-inch. Both of those are the less power-hungry Max-Q designs, but they’re still good enough to play a lot of modern games at decent settings and frame rates. You can also get it with up to 32GB of RAM and 1TB of SSD storage (2TB for the 15-inch). That power also makes it great for creative work, like working in Adobe Photoshop or Premiere.
What’s really cool about the Surface Book 3 is you can still detach the keyboard from the screen and use it as a tablet (though the NVIDIA GPU is inside the keyboard deck). You can use just the screen as a tablet, or you can turn it around and insert it back into the keyboard so you can use it as a stand for the screen. It’s still a versatile machine, but it has the power to play modern games or handle more intense creative workflows. Plus it still has a very premium and sleek design like other Surface devices.
Packing high-end Intel processors and dedicated NVIDIA graphics, the Surface Book 3 can handle most modern games at playable frame rates as well as creative workloads. You can still remove the screen from the keyboard and use it as a tablet, and it has the same premium design the family is known for.
Microsoft’s Surface lineup is known for premium and expensive devices, but the Surface Go does a good job of bringing the same premium feeling to a more affordable price point. It has the same magnesium casing Surface is known for, and the 10.5 inch display comes in the 3:2 aspect ratio at a decently sharp 1920 x 1280 resolution. Like the Surface Pro, you can get it with a Type Cover to make it more like a laptop. It supports the Surface Pen, too.
The biggest sacrifices here are on the inside. You can get the Surface Go 2 with an Intel Pentium Gold processor or spring for the Intel Core m3, which we’d recommend if you have the budget. An even more essential upgrade is the 8 GB of RAM, which you’ll need if you want to do any significant multi-tasking on it. If you want a premium-feeling tablet that can handle most day-to-day tasks, the Surface Go 2 is a good place to start.
The Surface Go 2 is an affordable tablet that retains the premium feel of its more expensive siblings, thanks to the magnesium casing. It has a tall screen for improved web browsing and you can get a Type Cover to get a laptop-feeling experience.
If you’re hung up on the performance hurdles we mentioned above and you just want a laptop, the Surface Laptop Go is for you. It actually has a fairly fast Intel Core i5-1035G1, though you don’t get Iris Xe or Iris Plus Graphics this way. Still, you can pair that Core i5 with either 4GB or 8GB of RAM to have a solid machine for work or school. It does have a middling resolution of 1536 x 1024, but other laptops in this price range also have lower resolution displays. And unlike the Go 2 tablet, it’s a laptop so the keyboard and trackpad come standard.
The Surface Laptop Go starts at $549, but we strongly recommend going for the $699 tier if you can. That extra $150 gets you 8GB of RAM (instead of 4GB), but also 128GB of SSD storage (instead of the slower 64GB eMMC). Plus, this tier also adds a fingerprint reader for Windows Hello, which is important because the Laptop Go is the only Surface PC without Windows Hello facial recognition.
The Surface Laptop Go offers solid performance and a premium design at an affordable price. The screen is less impressive than its siblings, but it still has a 3:2 aspect ratio and it supports touch. It's a great starting point for school work.
These are the best Surface devices you can get right now. The Microsoft Surface family does a great job of covering a variety of use cases without being too confusing. If you just want a premium tablet, the Surface Pro X is for you, and if you’re a digital artist, you can get the Surface Studio 2. Personally, my favorite is the Surface Book 3. I love you can get that extra gaming power from the keyboard base, but use the screen by itself as a tablet. Plus, I just love the overall design of it.
But if you don’t agree, there are quite a few other options to choose from. In fact, we have running lists of the best laptops from HP and Dell, if you’d like to check those out instead.
Japanese smartphones haven’t been relevant on a global stage in many years — partly because most non-Sony devices are not sold in chunks of the world, but also because the phones just didn’t offer competitive hardware compared to Apple, Samsung, or Chinese brands like Huawei and Xiaomi.
This year seems to be the year Japanese smartphone brands attempt to mount a comeback, with Sony releasing the impressively specced Xperia 1 III, and now Sharp is here with the Aquos R6, which offers two hardware breakthroughs that are industry firsts: a whopping 1-inch camera sensor and an IGZO OLED panel that can ramp up its refresh rate up to 240Hz.
The phone is only sold in Japan right now, but we managed to get our hands on one thanks to importer Trinity Electronics in Hong Kong.
Sharp Aquos R6: Specifications. Tap/click to show.
Sharp Aquos R6: Specifications
Specification
Sharp Aquos R6
Build
IPX8 certification
Dimensions & Weight
162 x 74 x 9.5mm
207g
Display
6.67-inch Pro IGZO OLED
2730 x 1260 pixels
2,000nits peak brightness
240Hz peak refresh rate
Variable refresh rate support (1-240Hz)
20,000,000:1 contrast ratio
HDR
SoC
Qualcomm Snapdragon 888
RAM & Storage
12GB LPDDR5
128GB UFS 3.1
microSD card slot (up to 1TB)
Battery & Charging
5,000mAh
Intelligent Charge 2.0 support
Security
Qualcomm 3D Sonic Max under-display fingerprint sensor
Rear Camera(s)
20MP 1-inch CMOS sensor
7-element f/1.9 Leica Summicron lens
19mm equivalent focal length
ToF sensor
LED flash
Front Camera(s)
12.6MP
Port(s)
USB Type-C
Audio
N/A
Connectivity
5G
Wi-Fi 6
Bluetooth 5.2
Software
Android 11
Sharp Aquos R6: Hardware and Design
At a glance, the Sharp Aquos R6 is a typical Android flagship slab, with curved glass on the front and back sandwiching an aluminum chassis, and a near bezel-less face with just a small hole-punch housing a 12MP selfie camera and a sizable camera module on the back.
Inside the phone is the usual Snapdragon 888, with 12GB of RAM and a 5,000 mAh battery. There’s a headphone jack at the bottom and on the right side of the chassis is an extra hardware button to launch Google Assistant (or other apps, if you so choose) along with the volume rocker and power button.
It’s a very well-built, premium handset that looks and feels similar in the hand as the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra in my opinion.
The similar vibes between the two phones is apt, because the Aquos R6’s 1-inch sensor is the largest camera sensor in the mobile industry, knocking off the previous champ Mi 11 Ultra, whose ISOCELL GN2 sensor measures 1/1.12-inch. But we’ll get to this in the camera section. Let’s talk about that 240Hz screen first.
The 6.67-inch, 2,730 x 1,260 OLED panel is, according to Sharp, the world’s first OLED panel to use IGZO (Indium, gallium, zinc, oxide) technology, which means the screen is layered with ultra thin-film transistors that offer remarkably low power leakage.
I’m no display expert, but the screen looks great to my eyes, with excellent viewing angles and rich details. Animations look buttery smooth as expected, although I can’t say I see superior fluidity over a 120Hz panel from Samsung or Xiaomi.
Sharp’s software calls the high refresh rate “high-speed display,” and there is no way to control it on a device-wide level. Instead, Sharp offers an app-by-app solution, meaning you can toggle high refresh rate on or off for each specific app. Also, note the toggle is either on (variable up to 240Hz) or off (60Hz). You can’t set it to any other specific value, like 90Hz or 120Hz for instance.
Sharp Aquos R6: Camera
The Aquos R6’s camera is designed to grab headlines, because not only does it have that 1-inch sensor, it also uses a Leica-branded lens that was co-developed via “close collaboration” by the two brands.
Personally, I find the recent trend of smartphone brands teaming up with legacy camera brands to be mostly marketing gimmicks (in my Huawei Mate 40 Pro review, I didn’t even mention the word “Leica” once) and my opinion doesn’t change much here.
From my testing, the Aquos R6’s camera hardware is indeed impressive because of that huge sensor. Just like the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, whose camera sensor is also very large, photos and videos captured by the Aquos R6 have a natural depth-of-field effect that separates the subject from the background (otherwise known as “bokeh”), giving shots a more professional look that apes the look of photos captured by a “real” camera.
This is particularly noticeable when comparing shots captured by the Aquos R6 against the iPhone 12 Pro, whose image sensor size is significantly smaller (Apple did not reveal its exact size). In the samples below, the Aquos R6 image has more separation between object and background.
Having natural bokeh in a photo is ideal, but smartphone brands, and in particular Google, have become very skilled at producing fake digital bokeh. So where the large 1-inch sensor really benefits is video footage, which also features that same background blur effect. Below are video clips showing footage captured by the Sharp Aquos R6 and the iPhone 12 Pro.
So we can see the Aquos R6’s significantly larger image sensor really adds a level of professional aesthetic that the iPhone’s flatter photos/videos can’t get. But there are other Android phones with large sensors, in particular, the Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra (1/1.13-inch) and Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra (1/1.33-inch), and when pitted against these two Android flagship beasts, the Sharp Aquos R6’s advantage mostly disappears.
You’ll notice that Samsung’s and Xiaomi’s images produced are just as pleasing with a natural bokeh and they’re more vibrant with punchier colors too.
This is the case with most of the photos captured by the Sharp Aquos R6, they look a bit on the bland side if the lighting condition isn’t great. If you’re taking a photo on a sunny day, then sure, the Aquos R6 can produce a great shot like below that
But in more challenging shots, the Aquos R6’s images consistently produce duller colors and inferior dynamic range compared to Apple and Xiaomi’s photos.
This is likely due to lackluster image processing from Sharp, and it’s not surprising. We are in the age of computational photography in mobile, where smartphone camera software is as important as camera hardware. It’s why the Google Pixel 5 still ranks as one of the best camera smartphones around despite outdated camera hardware.
And as a much smaller smartphone maker, Sharp likely lacks the R&D budget or expertise compared to Apple or Google (or even Samsung and Xiaomi) when it comes to building computational photography software algorithms. Sharp’s 1-inch camera sensor is impressive and cutting-edge, but the software processing keeps holding it back.
Smartphone camera software is as important as camera hardware
Here are some more night photo samples captured by the Sharp Aquos R6. Notice that Sharp blows out some lights in the shots quite badly, Apple, on the other hand, used HDR processing to produce a more balanced (if superficial) shot.
Sharp also made the curious decision to just equip with Aquos R6 with just one camera (along with a ToF sensor). This means zoom shots are digital (and the phone maxes out at just 6x zoom).
Software and Miscellaneous bits
On the software front, the Aquos R6 runs a version of Android 11. The settings page, notification shade, and app icons all look similar to stock Android, but there are some changes. First, there’s a lot of pre-installed bloatware, including apps from Amazon, Disney, and Docomo, the Japanese carrier through which the phone was sold.
Sharp also reverted back to the old-school method of launching the app tray — you have to tap on an on-screen icon — instead of the swipe up method. Instead, swiping up from the bottom of the screen launches a Japanese news feed.
Dig into settings and the page looks mostly familiar, except for an addition named Sharp Help Center which compiles all the additional software features into a cartoonish menu system. Here you can adjust the aforementioned refresh rate by app, set up a different app to launch when pressing the hardware button, tweak the game menu that pops up during mobile games, and access this feature called “SuguApp” which allows you to launch an app by shaking the phone. This works well, even if it is a bit weird.
The Sharp Aquos R6 is also the first phone to use Qualcomm’s 3D Max ultrasonic in-display fingerprint reader solution. In addition to being a bit faster than before, the scanning area is also said to be 1.7x larger. To that end, Sharp added a new feature that allows the phone to scan two fingers at once, with the idea being additional security. It works well, but I personally have no interest in unlocking my phone with two fingers.
Elsewhere, I haven’t used the phone long enough to give a conclusive opinion on battery life, but the 5,000 mAh cell seems to be good enough considering Sharp’s screen has a dynamic refresh rate and resolution isn’t as high as the Galaxy S21 Ultra or Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra.
Early Thoughts
Right now the Sharp Aquos R6 is only sold in Japan via the carrier Docomo, so official pricing is not known. In Hong Kong, the phone’s being sold at around HK$10,000, which converts to $1,228. Whatever the case, it’s safe to say those in the west thinking of importing this phone will surely pay at least four digits in US dollars.
While the Sharp Aquos R6 is generating excitement among the enthusiast community — people willing to pay for cutting-edge tech — the average consumer would be better off spending that same money on a Galaxy S21 Ultra or Xiaomi Mi 11 Ultra, since both phones offer large image sensors too, with much better camera software.
But Japan is mostly an iPhone country. So for those living in Japan, the Sharp Aquos R6 represents a great alternative, counter-culture option. And its large image sensor makes it different enough from the iPhone to have appeal.
