Sharp has a new phone that reminds us of the Essential Phone.

Called the Aquos S2, it has a 5.5-inch 2K screen, and if you were to look just at its front side, you could easily mistake it for the Essential Phone. You see, the screen wraps around the selfie camera cutout. There's a minimal bezel at the top, and a more noticeable one at the bottom to make room for the home button. Ignoring the home button, the camera cutout looks just like the Essential Phone's cutout.

That phone, coming from Essential, a startup founded by the co-creator of Android, was the first device to debut with this kind of design. Although, technically, the phone still isn't available to buy yet. Anyway, one other thing we should point out about the new Aquos S2 is that it has cut-off corners, rather than squared or rounded corners, which ultimately gives the phone more display area.

Moving on to the back, we can see a dual-camera setup, with two f/1.75 lenses, positioned vertically in the corner of the phone, with the flash placed underneath them. Look familiar? Yeah, it's what the next iPhone is supposed to feature. In other words, Sharp is ripping off two unreleased phones. However, unlike those high-end devices, the Aquos S2 comes up short in the specs department.

There's a “standard edition” with a Snapdragon 630 processor, 4GB of RAM, 64GB of storage, a 3,020mAh battery, and a fingerprint sensor, and then there's a “high edition” with a Snapdragon 660 processor, 6GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, a 3,020mAh battery, and a fingerprint sensor. Both models run Android Nougat with Sharp's Smile UX, and they appear to be available in China only.

It has a starting price of ¥2499, so about $373/£285.

Sharp S2 image 2
Sharp