Created: 16 May 2011 · Last edited: 24 October 2026

At a special presentation held on 16 March 2011, the Chinese division of Sharp Corporation announced four new models to launch soon: two slab phones and two flip phones. All four are modified versions of a Japanese model, some slightly, some a bit more. The bar phones are designated SH8168U and SH8158U, while the flip phones are SH7228U and SH7218U.

With sales starting in late May 2011, the SH8168U is a Chinese-market adaptation of the Japanese DoCoMo SH-03C. On both the outside and inside, the two devices are almost perfectly identical – save the obvious camera difference. Where the SH-03C has a 9.6-megapixel CCD-matrix camera of the ProPix class (it shoots 3D photos by asking the user to gently move the phone sideways a second after capturing the first image), the SH8168U has a twin-5-megapixel CMOS sensor. This I highly doubt is anywhere as capable.

The SH8168U is equipped with the same 3.8-inch screen with a 800 × 480 resolution as the SH-03C. It's a glasses-free 3D capable display built using Sharp's New Mobile ASV technology, making it capable of reproducing up to 16 million colours.

The phone runs on Android 2.2 (Froyo) and has a 1 GHz Qualcomm MSM8255 processor coupled with an Adreno 205 video processor and 512 MB of RAM. The built-in memory is 512 MB (vs 1 GB on the SH-03C), expandable via microSDHC cards.

Connectivity is achieved via WCDMA (900/2100 MHz) and GSM/GPRS/EDGE (900/1800/1900 MHz), Wi-Fi b/g supporting the compulsory Chinese WAPI protocol and Bluetooth 2.1 A2DP.

The phone also features a gravity sensor, a 3.5 mm audio jack and HDMI connection.

The SH8168U has a somewhat smaller battery than its Japanese sibling: 1320 vs 1400 mAh.