Created: 7 November 2012 · Last edited: 14 September 2026

The AQUOS PHONE SH930W is Sharp's first serious attempt to set foot on Russian soil, and it does so rather impressively... -ish. The phone is introduced as Sharp's flagship for the Russian market and subsequently makes its way to other international markets, including Hong Kong, Taiwan, Philippines, Thailand.

The star of the show is undoubtedly the 5-inch Full HD display, with a resolution of 1920 × 1080 pixels and a pixel density of around 440 ppi. The panel uses Sharp's cutting-edge IGZO LCD technology, which allows the display to achieve high light transmittance while reducing power consumption. It is an unusually ambitious display for a phone aimed at the international market, and the sheer pixel density is still rather spectacular by 2012 standards.

IGZO is particularly important here because the SH930W is one of the first international Sharp smartphones to bring the technology outside the company's home market. Sharp's new display technology is designed to reduce the amount of power required to keep a static image on screen, helping to compensate for the considerable demands of a 5-inch Full HD panel.

Unfortunately, Sharp has not given the display quite as much processing muscle as we might have hoped. The SH930W is powered by a 1.5 GHz Qualcomm MSM8260A dual-core processor based on Krait cores, accompanied by an Adreno 225 graphics processor. It does, however, come with a generous 2 GB of RAM and 32 GB of built-in storage. Only the Taiwan version is reported to feature a memory expansion slot.

This combination caused some raised eyebrows among early testers. Benchmark results suggested that the dual-core Snapdragon platform could struggle when faced with the demands of rendering 3D games at the phone's native Full HD resolution, while 1080p video playback also exposed some of its limitations. One early review measured just 13.6 frames per second in a demanding graphics test. That said, ordinary Android applications are unlikely to cause such problems, and the SH930W is hardly being sold primarily as a gaming machine.

The camera department is considerably more impressive. The rear camera uses an 8-megapixel CMOS sensor with autofocus and an LED flash, and can record 1920 × 1080 Full HD video. Sharp's ProPix image-processing technology is also employed to improve image quality. The front-facing camera is a surprisingly capable 2-megapixel CMOS unit, which can also record Full HD video at up to 30 frames per second.

Connectivity is aimed squarely at international users. The SH930W supports GSM and 3G networks, including W-CDMA, but there is no LTE support. Wi-Fi 802.11a/b/g/n operates on both 2.4 GHz and 5 GHz bands, while Bluetooth 4.0 and GPS with GLONASS are also included.

Sharp has also equipped the phone with the usual collection of Japanese smartphone features, including One Seg digital television and infrared communication, although some of the more Japan-specific mobile services found on the company's domestic models are understandably absent from this international version.

The SH930W runs Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and uses Sharp's Feel UX interface. This makes it one of the more interesting members of Sharp's international line-up, particularly when combined with the high-resolution IGZO display.

The phone is also notable for its relatively large but removable 2100 mAh battery. Despite the enormous Full HD display, Sharp is clearly relying on the low-power characteristics of IGZO to keep battery life respectable.

The SH930W measures approximately 139.4 × 72.2 × 9.1 mm and weighs around 144 grams with the battery. It is a surprisingly slim package considering the size and resolution of its display.

Sharp's first Russian smartphone is therefore something of an odd mixture: a genuinely cutting-edge IGZO Full HD display, 2 GB of RAM and a generous amount of internal storage are paired with a relatively modest dual-core processor. It may not be the fastest Android phone around, but the screen alone makes the SH930W a rather fascinating piece of Sharp hardware.

ROOT SH930W: Famaroot, see: Famaroot on XDA Developers