Specs at a glance: Sharp Aquos Crystal Screen 1280×720 5.0" (294 ppi) IGZO LCD OS Android 4.4.2, KitKat CPU 1.2GHz quad-core Snapdragon 400 RAM 1.5GB GPU Adreno 305 Storage 8GB Networking 802.11n, Bluetooth 4.0 Cellular Bands CDMA 800 / 1900,

CDMA2000 1xEV-DO,

LTE 850 / 1900 / 2500 Ports Micro USB 2.0, headphones Camera 8MP rear camera, 1.2MP front camera Size 5.16" x 2.64" x 0.39" (131 x 67 x 10 mm) Weight 4.97 oz. (141g) Battery 2040 mAh Starting price $0 with two-year contract, $239 unlocked Other perks A really small top and side bezel

Now here's something you don't see every day.

In an age when every smartphone seems to end up looking like the same old boring rectangle, the Japanese electronics company Sharp has produced one of the most intriguing-looking devices of the year. This is the Sharp Aquos Crystal, a device that is still a rectangle, but the top half of it looks like something straight out of the future. Sharp has taken the standard smartphone rectangle and pushed the display all the way up to the top, creating a device with basically no bezel on the top and sides.

At only $239 off-contract, the 5-inch, 720p device is definitely a mid-range product, with not a lot to get excited about internally. The Crystal is powered by a 1.2GHz Snapdragon 400—the same SoC we've seen stuffed into smartwatches—1.5GB of RAM, and 8GB of storage.

It's the outside that's the real draw of this device. It's a fashion piece, or a design exercise, or maybe just a tech demo.

Sharp isn't particularly well-known for making smartphones in the US, but it is a major supplier of LCDs. The company is a frequent partner of Apple's, where its displays are often the face of iPhones and iPads. Sharp has been a regular smartphone OEM in Japan, where it has a whole range of devices that more-or-less follow the Crystal design language.

Many of Sharp's display rivals, like Samsung, LG, and Sony, all have their own world-wide smartphone outfits. We're not sure if the Crystal showing up in America is a one-time thing or if it's the start of a long-term presence into America, and the company wouldn't tell us when we asked. You can certainly see Sharp's lack of experience with US carriers in the availability of the Crystal: only Sprint agreed to carry it.

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Ron Amadeo

Don't call the Aquos Crystal "bezel-less"—all the stuff that usually sits at the top has been moved to a big fat bezel at the bottom of the device. This houses the front-facing camera, notification LED, and sensor cluster. Notice that the front-facing camera is on the bottom left of the phone, when most have it on the top right. Using a front-facing camera on the bottom-left of the phone would be a little weird for framing, so the software instructs you to hold the phone upside down.

One thing you won't find on the Aquos Crystal is an earpiece. For phone calls, the entire screen vibrates to produce sound. Sharp calls it a "Direct Wave Receiver," but to us it seems exactly like the bone conduction speaker technology we've seen pop up in Google Glass and a few other out-there devices. Just press it up against your head and you'll hear sound. Like a bone conduction speaker, the sound gets louder when you plug your ears, or if you press the Aquos against a pair of headphones, the sound will go right through them.

While novel, the ear speaker is usually extremely quiet, making it a pretty poor substitute for a real earpiece. There's always the speakerphone, which is handled by a real speaker on the back of the device.

While this version isn't particularly loud, it's a really cool idea that eliminates one of the most rigid requirements of phone design. Microphones now are frequently put on the bottom edge of devices, and some devices, like the Nexus 6, even skip the notification LED and use a low power "ambient" display mode. That would mean the only things you really need on the front of the device are the camera and sensor cluster. Fewer things on the front of the device means more screen, and by removing the earpiece, Sharp is a step closer to the all-screen smartphone of our sci-fi dreams.

Sharp has done serious work on the size of the phone, too, thanks to the skinny bezels. It has managed to squeeze a 5-inch display into a body that is 6.9mm shorter and 2.2mm skinner than LG's Nexus 5, which was already a very compact phone. Sharp claims this is the smallest 5-inch device out there, and we believe them. The one area it's not small though, is the thickness. The Crystal is a whopping 10mm thick—compare that to the Nexus 5 (8.6mm) or iPhone 6 (6.9mm). We're not complaining, though. The smartphone thinness race is pretty pointless—we'd rather have larger batteries than thinner phones.

The entire top of the Crystal is glass, even the edges. Most phones have plastic sides that rise around the glass front to form a slightly-protective ridge. On the Crystal, though, the front glass makes up the corners and part of the side of the device. From a side view, about three-quarters of the way up, the plastic just stops and the entire top quarter of the phone is glass. No piece of electronics is ever really made to be dropped, but thanks to the glass corners, the Aquos seems particularly fragile.

Again there are some nice design touches here. There's a bevel on the edge of the glass that runs the entire length of the phone, which obstructs your view of the minimal bezels and looks great.

The screen isn't the greatest. 720p on a 5-inch display still hits 294 ppi, which is fine, but the colors are way over-saturated, reds especially. This isn't very noticeable on icons, but for pictures of people, any kind of light skin color becomes red or pink.

The back seems to be the same "perforated leather" concept as the Samsung Galaxy S5, but the execution here looks much nicer. There's a grid of large dots along with an offset grid of small dots, giving the back a nice little style of its own. The back plate is a matte, dry plastic, which pops off to reveal... not much. The back has slots for SIM and MicroSD cards, but the battery isn't removable. Given that the device is 10mm thick, we were expecting there to be room.

For $240, the build quality is decent. The back plastic doesn't feel terrible, and it looks great. We'd like to see it attached a little more security to the back of the phone though. The back won't fall off or anything, but you can shift it up and down while it's attached to the phone—it kind of slides around.

Our other complaint is that our unit has a few sloppy paint flaws on it. It's hard to spot, but the metallic paint on the top bezel of the screen isn't a smooth line. It's jagged and broken. There's also too much paint on the bottom left corner of the screen, so there isn't a clean corner. These are really small defects and not something a normal person would notice, but we aren't normal. If you buy this device, though, you're doing it for the unique look, so we'd imagine you would want the paint lines to be clean and straight.

Software

The Aquos runs mostly-stock Android 4.4, with only a customized camera app and a few extra sections added to the settings screen. It's a shame it's not the newest version of Android, 5.0 Lollipop. As a mid-range device from a smaller OEM, we aren't too confident in the future update possibilities for this.

Sharp has a few additions here that don't make a huge difference, and are all easily disabled. There are accelerometer-based power settings that can sleep the phone when it's lying down and keep it awake when it's in your hand, a swipe-to-wake gesture, and harmon/kardon-branded audio settings. Swipe-to-wake is a cool feature when it works, but it's unreliable one-handed since it won't work when the light sensor is blocked. Since it's on the bottom right of the phone, your hand frequently blocks the light sensor, so a swipe just brings up a "you're holding it wrong" error message.

This is a Sprint device, so it's loaded with crapware and bundled apps that may-or-may-not fit your demographic. There's 1Weather, Amazon, Assistant, CBS Sports, Eureka Offers, Gadget Guardian, Lumen Toolbar, Messaging+, NASCAR Mobile, NBA Game Time, Next Radio, Swype, Sprint ID, Sprint Money, Sprint Zone, and a Sprint Voicemail app. Yuck. Most apps are fully uninstallable, but Sprint ID and Sprint Zone (pictured above) are permanent—they can't be uninstalled or disabled.

The Aquos Crystal also has Sprint Spark™, a constantly-rotating status bar icon that lets you know you're on LTE. It's probably the most annoying piece of crapware ever created.

Camera

The Crystal specs sheet will tell you it has an 8MP sensor, but it feels more like a 4MP sensor that gets blown up to 200%. Just view any of these pictures at full size and you'll see there is nothing close to 8MP of detail here. Even when viewing the pictures at half the original size, there's still visible blockiness on the edges of objects.

It's rare to come across a good Android camera even on a flagship device, so a mid-range device doesn't have much of a chance to impress. If you assume the only purpose of a mid-range smartphone camera is to look good on Facebook and Instagram, then the Crystal camera is usually pretty good.

For comparison we've pitted the Aquos against a "good" 8MP smartphone camera, represented by the iPhone 5s; an "OK" 8MP camera, the Nexus 5; and a "terrible" 8MP camera, expertly demonstrated by the Nexus 4.

































Performance

Performance is about what you would expect from a mid-range device. You can get around in the OS, but you aren't going to do it at a smooth 60FPS, especially if something is happening in the background. Performance issues are a little more painful on something meant to be a fashion device.





Ron Amadeo













A 720p screen means the Aquos Crystal scores pretty high in our battery test. There isn't a huge amount of separation though. In normal use, the battery life seemed great. Nothing to complain about here.

An innovative design that we wish had matching internals

It's so refreshing to see a phone that doesn't slack off in the industrial design department. In a market where so many phones are boring cookie-cutter spec bumps, Sharp has managed to create something that looks unique and beautiful. Sharp managed to pull off the smallest bezels ever, which makes this the most compact 5-inch device out there.

It's still a mid-range device though, which means you aren't getting a super-smooth experience or a fantastic camera.

Sharp made the right moves in the software department, going with stock Android, but then Sprint showed up to mess things up a bit with annoying, unremovable features like Sprint Spark, a truckload of annoying-but-mostly-removable apps. We're not sure what Sharp's upgrade track record is, which is usually a bad thing. If we were buying this we would expect it to run KitKat forever.

Sure, there are some compromises, but it's a $240 phone, compromises are part of the deal. Sharp has managed to make a mid-range smartphone that can actually inspire envy at any price range, and for that we love it.

The Good

A smartphone that actually looks unique! Good on Sharp for having the guts to try something different.

The most compact 5-inch device available.

Stock Android! Now if only it would update to Lollipop.

The Bad

Sharp's earpiece solution is very unique, but also very quiet.

Poor color reproduction from the 720p screen.

The back panel doesn't fit very well—it wiggles.

An awkward, top-mounted power button. You shouldn't do that on a 5-inch device.

Sharp was clearly aiming for a fashionable device, but couldn't get the paint right on our review unit.

The Ugly