PUBLISHED July 5th, 2024 12:08 pm
In a market dominated by the USA, Korea, and China, smartphones from Japan are few and far between. Given that Japanese products are almost synonymous with quality, we couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a closer look at the brand-new Sharp AQUOS R8s Pro in this review. After all, it is manufactured by Sharp, one of the leaders in home electronics; though this can be a boon or bane.
Sharp cleverly incorporates their image-enhancing expertise from their AQUOS LCD TVs into the similarly named AQUOS smartphones. But when we think of AQUOS, it is the TV that comes to mind. Yet, this is not Sharp’s first foray into the smartphone industry. Through the years, they have produced smartphones for the Japan Domestic Market, an exclusive collaboration with fashion brand Vivienne Westwood, and even the world’s first walking mobile robotic phone RoBoHoN.
Daily Use
As a lifestyle writer, capturing content on the go is part of my job; with the occasional binge-watching and gaming to while my time away. My phone sometimes serves as a secondary device to my gaming child but it is my main source of social media entertainment and research, which makes the Sharp AQUOS R8s Pro a good fit for my lifestyle.
Ease and Convenience
Right out of the box, the immediate thing I noticed about the Sharp AQUOS R8s Pro was how light it felt in my hands. Weighing only 203g (a whole 30g lighter than my Samsung S23 Ultra), it felt like a toy for a moment, especially with the plastic cover on the back. But over the two weeks, these were some of the things I grew to appreciate – no fingerprints to wipe off and less strain when holding and manoeuvring the phone.
Besides the two-pin plug, charging cable, and a USB adaptor, the phone also comes with a pre-installed screen protector, which was so subtle that it took me a couple of days to notice it.
Photos and Videos
The AQUOS R8s Pro is a sleek 6.6” smartphone with a 47.2 MP 1-inch sensor main camera and a 12.6MP front camera for selfies. It can record up to 8K videos on the main camera and the front camera shoots at 1080p at 30fps. Video stabilisation is achieved with the gyro-EIS (Electronic Image Stabilisation). All this simply means that its camera capabilities rival that of flagships from popular brands, even offering more natural-looking images (natural colour and not overly sharpened) that are closer to what we see in real life.
However, the phone doesn’t come with an in-house photo and video editing app, unlike its rivals each boasting their unique filters and photographic styles. It may pose an inconvenience for some but with the myriad of third-party editing apps out there, this is a small issue.
However, the Sharp AQUOS R8s Pro does come with special camera functions, on top of the standard pro, portrait, photo and video functions, such as a pet mode and fireworks mode which we didn’t get to try. At this point, it is the only phone I know of that can detect pets. Putting it to the test, I took two shots, one with the pet mode and another with portrait mode. It’s pretty clear that the pet detection function has done its job well, offering clean outlines of my furkid while the portrait mode blurs her body together with the background. One up for fur parents!
Entertainment, Battery Life, and Memory
Compared to the 4855mAh on my current phone, the Sharp AQUOS R8s Pro boasts a 5000mAh battery that easily sees me through the day. With its larger battery capacity and reverse wireless charging capability, I could even charge other devices on the go. Fresh out of the box, the phone got to full charge from 40% in just under 30 minutes. The good thing is that I can squeeze in three full episodes of Bridgerton, two hours of intense gameplay on Roblox and Brawl Stars among others, and create content, while still having juice for the next day. Thanks to its new heat dissipation technology, the thermo management system, it doesn’t heat up as easily as other phones after all this work.
Built as an entertainment powerhouse, the Sharp AQUOS R8s Pro is powered by Sharp’s Pro IGZO LTPO OLED Technology and offers the HDR Dolby Vision display, Dolby Atmos sound technology for a full immersive audio-visual experience (similar to those used in movies). It also boasts a rarity in flagship phones, the 3.5mm audio jack – if you still have your wired earphones, this is where to use them!
One thing though, the Sharp AQUOS R8s Pro runs on the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 2 chipset, while other flagships are offering Gen 3. However, this does not stop it from running multiple apps at the same time, and neither does it affect intense game playing on the phone.
Another rarity is its MicroSD card slot which allows storage expansion of up to 1TB – something you can’t find in flagship phones these days. The Sharp AQUOS R8s Pro comes only in one storage option – 256GB, so unless you’ve completely hopped onto cloud storage, the expandable memory here is a plus.
Lastly, the Sharp AQUOS R8s Pro is only available in black – can we see it in more colours, please?
The Sharp AQUOS R8s Pro is available online for purchase at the SHARP CocoroLife estore, Shopee, selected Best Denki, Challenger, Courts and other authorised dealer stores islandwide. The phone is priced at S$1,299 in Singapore.
Top Image: Sharp