Created: 18 January 2017 · Last edited: 19 September 2026

Scheduled to roll out sometime in late February 2017 is Y!Mobile's second iteration of an Android One device. Behold the Android One S1. Yes, it's the second one and yes, it's called the S1. Don't ask why.

The same phone was released by UQ Mobile in June of the same year, only now dubbed AQUOS L2. The choice of the "L2" designation is equally puzzling.

Android One is a line of devices targeted at new users of smartphones, mainly from emerging countries markets, where the design and development of the device is handled by Google, and the manufacturing is managed by an OEM such as Sharp. In Japan, marketing is done by the carrier (SoftBank's Y!Mobile MNVO).

This is why you should not expect to find much of Sharp's high-end stuff in the Android One line. In the S1, we see some minor improvements from the first device, the 507SH, in the series launched in mid-2016. The display is still 5 inches diagonally, but the resolution is now Full HD (1920 x 1080 px), not HD. What gives it a true competitive edge is Sharp's IGZO technology that guarantees 3 or 4 full days of use in a single charge of its 2,530 mAh battery.

Since the Android One, as the name suggests, is supposed to be an entry-level smartphone, it makes sense to find a low-range and not particularly new processor onboard: the Snapdragon 430 (MSM8937) on the S1/L2 has four 1.4 GHz and four 1.1 GHz cores and was released in September 2015, over a year and a half prior. The first Android One had the mid-range Snapdragon 617.

The amount of RAM stays the same: 2 GB, which should be just enough considering that the Android One line lacks all the SoftBank/Docomo/AU bloatware that you can't uninstall and that takes up lots of operating memory. No change in the onboard store space either: it's still 16 GB, of which some 8.5 GB are free to the user. This can be expanded using microSDXC cards to up to 256 GB.

The Android One S1/AQUOS L2 has the same camera sensor, too: a 13.1 MP CMOS that should be okay for casual shots of your cat (only if standing still) or a tasty dish or what-have-you.

The inner camera on the S1/L2 is now 8 MP, which is a step up from the 5 megapixels of the 507SH. It too features wide-angle (85°) shooting.

The device supports VoLTE, Wi-Fi a/b/g/n standards, Bluetooth 4.1, but no infrared. It works on LTE and 3G frequencies only (details below).

The Android One S1 / AQUOS L2 is waterproof (IPX5 / IPX7) and dust-proof (IP6X). It also supports quick charge (using a compatible charger), and Google Backup. One Seg digital TV and NFC, available on the previous model, have now been scrapped on the S1. But the L2 has NFC.

It measures 69 × 143 × 8 mm (width × height × depth) and weighs 134 grams.