Created: 23 April 2013 · Last edited: 21 September 2026

Sharp has made plenty of sophisticated smartphones for SoftBank, but the company is now going in the opposite direction with the Simple Sumaho 204SH. Designed specifically for people who are new to smartphones, this handset strips the experience down to the essentials with large text, large buttons and an interface that even the most smartphone-phobic user should be able to understand.

The Simple Sumaho 204SH features a 4.0-inch New Mobile ASV display with a resolution of 800 x 480 px (WVGA) and support for up to 16.77 million colours. The screen is accompanied by large physical buttons for the phone, email and home functions, while Sharp's "Kantan Oshikan Touch" system can distinguish between merely touching the screen and actually pressing it, helping to reduce accidental operations.

The home screen uses Sharp's "Simple Line Home" interface, which keeps things deliberately uncomplicated: all functions can be accessed by scrolling vertically through a simple layout. The phone also features an easy zoom function that can enlarge parts of the screen that would normally be difficult to magnify.

The main camera has an effective resolution of 4.9 megapixels and uses a CMOS sensor with autofocus. A secondary 0.3-megapixel CMOS camera is also provided. The main camera can therefore manage the rather basic photographic duties expected of a phone from 2013, although nobody is going to confuse this with one of Sharp's camera-focused AQUOS models.

This smartphone is powered by a Qualcomm MSM8255 processor having a single core clocked at 1.4 GHz. The amount of RAM is 1 GB and the amount of on-board storage (ROM) is 4 GB. A microSDHC card slot is provided, supporting cards of up to 32 GB; a 2 GB card is included with the phone.

The Simple Sumaho 204SH supports W-CDMA on the 900 MHz, 1.5 GHz and 2.1 GHz bands in Japan, as well as W-CDMA networks overseas. 3G High Speed provides download speeds of up to 14 Mbps and upload speeds of up to 5.7 Mbps.

Wireless connectivity includes Wi-Fi 802.11 b/g/n at 2.4 GHz and Bluetooth 3.0. GPS, infrared communication and One-Seg digital TV are also supported. NFC, tethering and SoftBank 4G are not provided.

Sharp has also paid considerable attention to voice calls. The 204SH features "Triple Crisp Talk", which detects surrounding noise and adjusts the sound accordingly, making conversations easier to hear in noisy environments. Voice operation can be used to make calls, launch the camera and perform other functions, while voice input can also be used when composing emails. The phone can even read out notifications and email messages.

The battery has a capacity of 1800 mAh. The phone measures approximately 64 x 128 x 12.0 mm and weighs around 130 g.

The Simple Sumaho 204SH runs Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. However, this is very much Android with the Sharp/SoftBank treatment: the phone does not allow applications to be downloaded from Google Play or other websites, nor can Google's own applications be used. Apparently, if you're going to make a smartphone simple, you might as well remove most of the smartphone bit.

The 204SH is available in Silver, Pink and Navy. It is also waterproof (IPX5/IPX7) and dust-proof (IP5X), making it considerably more practical for its intended audience than its modest specifications might suggest.

The Simple Sumaho 204SH goes on sale through SoftBank in May 2013. It is the first Sharp handset in SoftBank's new Simple Sumaho line, aimed squarely at customers who want a smartphone without having to learn how a smartphone works first.