Sharp Aquos SH930W reviewed early in Russia, mates Sharp's 1080p screen with a mid-tier phone

[ ](http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/16/sharp-aquos-sh930w-reviewed-early-in-russia-with-1080p-display/)

Lest you think HTC has a complete lock on Sharp's supply of extra-dense [5-inch, 1080p](http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/01/sharp-443-ppi-5-inch-smartphone-display-ceatec-2012/) screens for the [Droid DNA](http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/13/htc-droid-dna-hands-on/) and [J Butterfly](http://www.engadget.com/2012/10/17/htc-j-butterfly-htl21-440ppi/), Sharp itself is building a phone around the giant LCD. The Aquos Phone SH930W slightly rethinks the internals of HTC's new Android 4.1 flagship to make it more affordable, doubling the non-expandable storage to 32GB but scaling back to a dual-core, 1.5GHz Snapdragon S3 and dropping the currently unsupported LTE. That cost-cutting will be vital, as the SH930W is headed to a more price-sensitive Russia first, in late November -- one of the few (if not only) times that Sharp has tailored a smartphone to a country other than its native Japan. The 22,000-ruble ($694) off-contract price in Russia could undercut mere 720p rivals that often cost 25,000 rubles ($789) or more.

It's an odd phone by any account, and _Mobile-review_ was curious enough to snag a pre-release SH930W for an early inspection. While the device under the microscope was running vanilla Android rather than the planned [Feel UX](http://www.engadget.com/2012/06/18/sharp-teams-up-with-design-company-for-new-feel-ux-android-skin/) and may easily have a fair share of buggy code, initial benchmarks seem to validate fears of a mismatch between the display and an underpowered chip: the S3 is fast enough for common tasks at that resolution, but chokes with playing 1080p video and certain 3D games. Anyone buying the extra-large Aquos Phone will mostly be choosing it for the good battery life, the camera and that killer price, the site says. We'll admit to being slightly disappointed at such a pedestrian fate for Sharp's screen so soon into its lifespan, although we suspect performance-minded Muscovites could get a chance at a much faster [HTC Deluxe](http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/15/htc-deluxe-press-render-reportedly-leaks-spreads-droid-dna/) in the near future.

Filed under: [Cellphones](http://www.engadget.com/category/cellphones/), [Mobile](http://www.engadget.com/category/mobile/)

[Sharp Aquos SH930W reviewed early in Russia, mates Sharp's 1080p screen with a mid-tier phone](http://www.engadget.com/2012/11/16/sharp-aquos-sh930w-reviewed-early-in-russia-with-1080p-display/) originally appeared on [Engadget](http://www.engadget.com) on Fri, 16 Nov 2012 02:14:00 EDT. Please see our [terms for use of feeds](http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/).

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