An upcoming smartphone from Sharp showed up at the FCC recently, but what’s most interesting about this device it the phrase Sharp uses to describe it.
The phone is a “Dual mode hand held Mini Phablet.”
Phablet usually suggests a phone with a big display, since it straddles the line between a smartphone and a tablet.
So what’s a mini phablet? I’d think it’d be a smartphone.
Anyway, there aren’t many details about this particular device, but we do know that it supports quad-band 4G LTE, tri-band WCDMA 3G, Bluetooth, WiFi, GPS. and NFC.
Sharp doesn’t sell a lot of smartphone models int he United States, but the company did bring its Aquos Crystal line of phones with nearly invisible bezels to the US in 2014.
Thanks Dave Zatz!
Nothing beats marketing for spreading confusion.
Mystery solved. https://www.sharp-world.com/corporate/news/141006.html Looks like the new MEMS-IGZO display tablet that they talked about in October. They orginally said it would make its way to market the first half of 2015. I could be wrong, but in the FCC docs they have a representation wireframe of the device that matches the same design.
Good detective work. Yes, pages 15 and 28 of this doc show a silhouette matching that device:
https://apps.fcc.gov/eas/GetApplicationAttachment.html?id=2501758
They demoed it at CES, here’s a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zYEFmlblQjE&t=14
Unfortunately, the Sharp page says “mainly targeting Japan’s B2B market in the first half of 2015” which to me translates as “expensive” and “limited consumer availability.” I still don’t see how this is a mini phablet – 7 inches is a tablet to me.
I like that it’s hand held, finally a phablet I won’t be using with my feet!
Perhaps a US version of the 5.5-inch AQUOS Crystal X that launched on Softbank in Japan in December: https://www.sharp.co.jp/products/aquos-crystal-x/index.html
Would assume it will be exclusive to Sprint and its prepaid brands as the AQUOS Crystal was.
WHAT???? Mini Phablet?????