Created: 29 March 2011 · Last edited: 25 October 2026

At a special presentation held on 16 March 2011, the Chinese division of Sharp Corporation announced four new models due to launch soon: two bar phones and two flip phones. All four are modified versions of Japanese models, some more extensively than others. The bar phones are designated SH8168U and SH8158U, while the flip phones are SH7218U and SH7228U. There is no SH7318U model. Read below.

The SH7218U and SH7228U belong to a series called 炫Plus (which translates as Dazzle PLUS) and are also known as XS-01 and XS-02. Both run Android, making them the world's first Android clamshell phones, launching two months before the SoftBank AQUOS Phone 007SH.

While these flip keitai do indeed look like the 007SH, they are actually modelled after Docomo's AQUOS SHOT SH-01B, only customised to run Android instead of Docomo's proprietary Linux-based OS, developed by Access. And, unfortunately, they are downgraded versions of the SH-01B.

The SH7228U sports a 3.4-inch capacitive touchscreen with a resolution of 854 × 480 px, plus an external display: a 3-inch Memory LCD with a resolution of 240 × 456 pixels. It can display the time, incoming calls and messages, music controls, news, weather, horoscopes, and even e-books. And, rather wonderfully, Sharp also intended it to be used as a mirror.

The phone has an 8-megapixel CMOS main camera with face recognition and smile shutter, as well as an internal 0.3 MP camera for selfies and video calls.

Compare this with the 12.1-megapixel CCD sensor with LED flash on the SH-01B, which offers a high-sensitivity mode equivalent to ISO 12800, automatic scene recognition, six-axis image stabilisation, subject shake correction using movement detection, chase focus (which automatically tracks the subject), and personal detection (which recognises a pre-registered face), and you'll understand why I call these phones "downgraded".

The XS-02 uses a 600 MHz Qualcomm MSM7227 processor and has 512 MB of RAM and 512 MB of built-in storage, expandable via microSD. On paper, the processor looks only slightly faster than the 500 MHz ARM1176JZF-S application processor in the Renesas SH-Mobile G3 (SH7367) used by the SH-01B. And indeed, the two are broadly comparable in terms of CPU performance. But the G3 is a rather more interesting beast: alongside its 500 MHz application processor, it has a separate 500 MHz SH-X2 multimedia processor and a 166 MHz ARM926EJ-S baseband processor, with dedicated hardware for graphics and media processing. The MSM7227, meanwhile, combines its 600 MHz ARM11 CPU with an Adreno 200 GPU and integrated modem functionality.

This Chinese keitai runs Android 2.2.1 with Sharp China's customised Dim Sum (Tapas) interface. It never received an official Android version upgrade from Sharp. Enthusiasts did attempt to port Android 2.3 to it, but these were unofficial projects.

One particularly nice feature of the SH-01B that the XS-02 retains (I am not sure about the XS-01) is the LED strip around the display. It pulsates in various colours when the phone rings, when an SMS or email arrives, when charging, and so on. I had bought an SH-01B for my wife, and she really loved it. And, yes, the camera was truly amazing.

The XS-02 supports GSM 850/900/1800/1900 and WCDMA 900/2100, as well as Wi-Fi (b/g/n), Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, and USB 2.0 via a micro-USB port. Additional features include a gravity sensor, proximity sensor, ambient light sensor, and GPS.