Attendees Play A Check-In Game To Win Prizes By Tapping Their NFC-Enabled Android Smartphones
IN PHOTO: Attendees play a check-in game to win prizes by tapping their NFC-enabled Android smartphones at the Google I/O developers conference in San Francisco June 25, 2014. Reuters/Elijah Nouvelage

The mid-range Sharp Aquos Crystal smartphone has recently been announced in Japan. However, the handset with impressive features is heading to Sprint in the U.S. It is not surprising that the Japanese handset is being offered by Sprint because the company was acquired by Japan's SoftBank in the recent past.

Sprint officially launched the Sharp Aquos Crystal handset exclusive to its Now Network. The phone will be offered in black and white colours. Even though, Sprint has not provided the exact release date, the rumoured time frame is Aug. 29, according to GSM Arena.

The price of the Sharp Aquos Crystal pertaining to Sprint is $239.99 without a contract. Furthermore, the same carrier also provides Easy Pay instalment option. This translates to a monthly payment of $10 for a total of 24 months.

However, there is no information available to ascertain the cost of the standard 2-year contract with the carrier at this point. Interested readers can also purchase the handset via Sprint's prepaid plans. Virgin Mobile will offer the Aquos Crystal in black, whereas Boost Mobile will sell the handset in white. The aforementioned variants will be available for $149.99.

As GSM Arena puts it, the unique selling point of the device is its "virtually inexistent" bezels. When it comes to key specifications, the Sharp Aquos Crystal smartphone will feature a good 5.0-inch edge-to-edge S-CG Silicon LCD HD display bundled with 720 x 1,280 pixels screen resolution. The device will be powered by a quad-core (Qualcomm Snapdragon 400) processor clocked at 1.2 GHz.

Furthermore, the phone will house 1.5 GB of RAM. As far as the camera goes, the device will sport an 8 MP rear-facing camera unit with LED flash and a 1.2 MP front-facing shooter for selfies. The main camera packs HDR, scenery mode, night catch, shutter detect, sequential shots and Panorama to name a few. The interesting aspect of this handset is that, the front-facing shooter is located at the bottom of the phone similar to the Sony Xperia ZL, according to NDTV.

The Aquos Crystal will come equipped with 8 GB of internal storage and microSD card support for expansion up to 128 GB and will be backed by a solid 2,040 mAh battery unit. The battery can provide up to 13 hours of talk-time. Also, the handset is 10 mm thick and it weighs 141 g. The device supports standard connectivity options like Bluetooth 4.0, Wi-Fi, MicroUSB and 3G/4G LTE.

The smartphone runs on Android 4.4.2 KitKat and it houses Harman Kardon branded sound system. Interested readers should check out the killer Sharp Aquos Crystal images from The Verge.

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