Sharp made a phone with two notches

By Sam Byford, The Verge

Last year Sharp released the Aquos R Compact, a phone with a tiny camera notch on the top edge and a humongous bezel on the bottom for a fingerprint sensor. It didn’t look great. But for this year’s model, the company has hit upon a novel solution to increase the screen size while keeping the fingerprint sensor. Yep, that’s right, the Aquos R2 Compact has another notch.

The screen is a 5.2-inch 2280 x 1080 IGZO LCD that wraps around the camera and the fingerprint sensor. It doesn’t quite go as far to the bottom of the device as it does on the other three edges, but it’s a big improvement on the previous design. And for the size, this will be one of the most powerful phones available anywhere — it has a Snapdragon 845 processor with 4GB of RAM, Android 9 Pie, a 22.6-megapixel camera, and a 2,500mAh battery.

© Provided by Vox Media, Inc.

The dual notches might not be to everyone’s taste, but this is the most high-end Android phone with a small screen and a modern bezel-less design that I’m aware of — the previous Aquos R Compact used a mid-range Snapdragon 660 processor. It’s a shame that that the R2 will likely remain in Japan when SoftBank releases it next year.

As for the Aquos R3 Compact, Sharp had better not fall foul of Google’s restrictions on devices with three notches.