Sharp Aquos R2 Compact Announced With Two Display Notches

Sharp has launched a new smartphone called the Aquos R2 Compact and it is the very first Android phone to arrive with two notches on its display. The notches are located on the top and bottom portion of the display, with the latter being slightly larger to accommodate the fingerprint scanner.

The Sharp Aquos R2 Compact comes with a 5.2-inch IGZO LCD display with a screen resolution of 2280 x 1080, according to The Verge. The screen, which also features a 120Hz refresh rate like the Razer Phone, wraps around the camera module on top and around the fingerprint scanner at the bottom. Although the notches are positioned at the center, the bottom notch is thicker while the one on top is smaller and resembles the notch on the Essential Phone.

The notch on top of the display houses an 8-megapixel camera and just above it is a slit for the earpiece speaker. The fingerprint scanner at the bottom notch also functions to provide additional gesture-based navigation through swiping action. The two notches may annoy a lot of users who aren’t fans of the notch, but at least the Aquos R2 Compact comes with slim bezels all around and a small frame, as pointed out by Android Authority.

Sharp released the very first Aquos R Compact last year and it arrived with a very thick bottom bezel and a slightly larger notch for the front-facing camera. Putting the original and the R2 Compact side-by-side shows that Sharp was able to maximize screen real estate by shrinking the camera module and slimming down the bottom bezel without having to remove the front-mounted fingerprint scanner on the R2. Yes, there are two notches, but at least there are less bezels and more screen. Sharp could have implemented an in-display fingerprint scanner like other manufacturers, but it's possible the company didn't do this to bring down cost.

The two notches may be a shock to many, but Google did hint earlier this year that this might happen to future Android phones. In July, Google published some guidelines for manufacturers on how to implement one or two notches on their respective Android phones to provide the best experience possible.

The Sharp Aquos R2 Compact is also housing some powerful specs. The handset comes with the Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor with 4GB of RAM and 64GB of storage. On the back, it has a single 22.6-megapixel camera. It’s also packing a 2,500mAh battery, which might be a little too small for some, but it seems understandable considering the overall size of the handset. On the software side of things, the handset is running Android 9.0 Pie straight out of the box.

The Sharp Aquos R2 Compact will be released in Japan in January 2019 and it looks like it won’t be released in the U.S. Pricing for the R2 Compact hasn’t been revealed, but the original R Compact arrived last year with a $370 price tag.