Created: 2 October 2022 · Last edited: 26 September 2026

Sharp have just announced the Aquos sense7 plus – a mid-range phone that beats the flagships from a few years ago into the ground.

Curiously, the new instalment in the Aquos sense series seems to also signal the discontinuation of the Aquos zero series. While many eagerly awaited news on the launch of the zero7, no such announcement was made in Sharp's 26 September presentation, and the Aquos sense7 is now almost identical to the Aquos zero, save for the design.

The Aquos sense7 plus is a slightly upgraded version of the Aquos sense7. For the time being, it is only released by SoftBank under model number A208SH.

The Aquos sense7 plus features Sharp's proprietary IGZO OLED display, following its introduction to the mid-range sense series with the Aquos sense6. The display measures 6.4 inches diagonally and has a resolution of 2340 x 1080 pixels. This is slightly larger than the 6.1 inches of the Aquos sense7 but the resolution is slightly lower. It is capable of displaying 1 billion colours thanks to its 10-bit processing engine and boasts a peak brightness of 1300 nits and a contrast ratio of 13,000,000:1. The display can refresh at up to 120 Hz, while Sharp's black-frame insertion technology produces a 240 Hz-equivalent display effect, reducing afterimages and making moving images considerably smoother.

Another difference between the sense7 and the sense7 plus model is that to ensure the best viewing experience, the phone comes with what Sharp flaunt as "the best stereo speaker ever" on an Aquos phone, which has large-diameter speakers that have been boxed out (isolated from the rest of the phone's internals and from each other) to produce deep and powerful bass and expansive, powerful sound.

In fact, the sense7 plus is surprisingly close to the regular sense7 in terms of hardware. Both use the same Snapdragon 695 5G processor, 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of storage, and both have exactly the same rear and front cameras. The main differences are the larger display, larger battery, enhanced stereo speakers and consequently larger body.

The Aquos sense7 plus camera won't fail to impress, either. The phone is equipped with a large 1/1.55-inch image sensor, which is an increase by about 66% in comparison with last year's Aquos sense6. The new image-quality engine ProPix4 is the same as found on the Aquos R7! Auto-focus speed is almost double that of the Aquos sense6 thanks to phase-difference AF – this lets users capture images faster and more accurately, with less noise and much greater detail.

The phone has two rear cameras: one standard 50.3-megapixel, f/1.9 lens (wide-angle 85°, 23 mm focal length equivalent), and one wide-angle 8 MP, f/2.4 lens (super wide-angle 120°, 15 mm focal length equivalent). Both cameras use electronic image stabilisation.

The inner camera has an 8 MP, f/2.0 lens (wide-angle 78°, 26 mm focal length equivalent).

To power all of this, the Snapdragon 695 5G octa-core processor is used along with 6 GB of RAM and 128 GB of onboard storage memory, expandable using microSDXC cards of up to 1 TB. The processor combines two 2.2 GHz cores with six 1.8 GHz cores.

So despite the "plus" name, there is no increase in RAM or storage over the regular sense7. Sharp has instead concentrated the upgrade on the things you actually see, hear and carry: the display, speakers and battery.

The combination is a rather strange one: a mid-range Snapdragon 695 powering a phone with a 13,000,000:1 IGZO OLED, the same ProPix4 image-quality engine as the flagship Aquos R7, a huge 5,050 mAh battery, stereo speakers and 240 Hz-equivalent display processing. Sharp put some seriously high-end hardware around a decidedly mid-range processor.

The built-in 5050 mAh battery is considerably larger than the 4570 mAh unit in the Aquos sense7 and was the largest battery ever fitted to an AQUOS smartphone at the time of its release. Together with the power-efficient IGZO OLED display, it should provide excellent endurance.

Not only is the Aquos sense7 plus water (IPX5/8) and dust (IP6X) proof but it is also shock proof, having passed a drop test under MIL-STD-810G and a range of environmental tests under the newer MIL-STD-810H standard.

The larger display and battery naturally make the sense7 plus a larger and heavier phone than the sense7. It measures 160 x 76 x 8.2 mm and weighs 172 grams, compared with 152 x 70 x 8 mm and 158 grams for the regular sense7.

Both nano SIM and eSIM are supported.

The Aquos sense7 plus also supports NFC and FeliCa, including Osaifu-Keitai mobile payments, as well as Hi-Res Audio and Hi-Res Wireless Audio. Wi-Fi supports IEEE 802.11a/b/g/n/ac and Bluetooth 5.1.