Created: 15 October 2015 · Last edited: 18 September 2026

It has been a while since SoftBank released a flip phone – since the Premium 301SH in November 2013 – but it seems interest in the traditional style keitai is picking up, now that these phones use Android, albeit a heavily customised version, as their OS.

The new Aquos Mobile (AQUOS ケータイ) is released under the 501SH model name on SoftBank and as 504SH on Y!Mobile – but you will not find either model name on the Sharp or SoftBank advertising web pages.

The SoftBank Aquos Mobile 501SH/504SH has the same 3.4-inch screen flip phones have had for a few years now, as that seems to be the affordable maximum for a traditional keitai. The screen resolution is great and about the maximum these displays can ever get, it seems: QHD (540 × 960 pixels). On the back of the main display is a small Organic EL display (21 × 96 dots) which shows incoming calls, messages, email, alarm and other information.

It is powered by a Snapdragon 210, quad-core 1.1 GHz processor, has 1 GB of RAM, and 8 GB of onboard storage that can be expanded to up to 32 GB using microSDHC cards.

Supported radio frequencies include W-CDMA (900 MHz / 2.1 GHz) and GSM system (900 MHz / 1800 MHz / 1900 MHz). The former should ideally ensure a 21 Mbps downlink and 5.7 Mbps uplink speed.

A serious disadvantage of the Aquos Mobile is that there is no Wi-Fi... I know, I know, how stupid is this?

The phone has an 8 MP camera that is capable of shooting "bright images of high sensitivity and low noise in low light" but there's no word on the aperture. It supports HDR still photography and time-lapse video – the maximum resolution video it can capture is HD (1280 × 720).

The body of the phone is entirely metallic, with two different metallic surfaces that are supposed to "produce a sense of quality", according to the manufacturer's website. The keypad buttons have an arc-ridge shape for comfortable use.

The Aquos Mobile, like all other recent flip keitai, has the LINE chat and calls app built-in (although it needs to be downloaded), as well as a full browser. Your net-surfing experience is hardly going to be amazing, though, for the lack of a touch screen and screen rotation. Don't we miss the old keitai that could rotate 180 degrees for both comfortable navigation (in-phone and online) and camera use – not to mention those 12 or 16-megapixel high-quality CCD lenses?

To make navigation convenient, Sharp have developed the so-called Touch Cruiser. The Touch Cruiser turns the entire keypad area into a touchpad, allowing you to slide your finger across the surface to move the on-screen cursor and scroll through content. This works alongside the conventional D-pad, giving you a surprisingly touch-like way of navigating the phone despite its non-touchscreen display.

This Aquos Mobile is water- (IPX5/7) and dust-proof (IP5X). It has Bluetooth ver. 4.1, and Infrared. One Seg television is supported.

The phone has a 1410 mAh battery. It weighs 124 grams and measures 51 × 113 × 17.6 mm when folded.