There used to be a time when cell phones were branded in all sorts of colors and names in order to shift more units and we’ve seen big movie tie-ins make boring phones famous, such as the classic Nokia 8110 used in the first Matrix film. Nowadays though, a lot of smartphone manufacturers stick to four, maybe five colors if we’re lucky, with Motorola being the one company to go against the grain. Even last year’s 007 Spectre had a lousy special edition from Sony with little to right home button. Far East in Japan however, and things are very different, indeed.
This isn’t the first time that we’ve seen a Disney-branded smartphone to hit Japan, as LG took a shot at one not too long ago. Now however, it’s Sharp’s turn. The DM-01H (presumably for Disney Mobile) is available in either Sapphire Blue or Sparkle Pink and will go on sale on the 29th, later this month. On the inside, the DM-01H is powered by a Snapdragon 808 CPU with 3GB of RAM as well as 16GB of expandable storage. As this is probably going to be something used by younger users, it’s no surprise to see Sharp opt for a 4.7-inch display, but the resolution of 1920 x 1080 is a welcome one. Running Android 5.1 Lollipop it appears like there will be some software customisations on top, probably revolving around the Disney branding. Coming in at 126 x 66 x 8.9 mm this looks set to be a fairly portable device overall, too.
Camera wise, there’s a 13-megapixel camera round the back and a 5-megapixel front-facing camera for selfies and video calls. The whole package looks pretty nice, but there’s no getting around the fact that it’s designed for a certain type of user. Those that are fans of Disney in Japan, where the Western brand is a big draw, will be able to get their hands on this via NTT DoCoMo’s network come January 29th, but there probably won’t be a release of this here in the West. Which is a real shame, but it looks as though the trend of anime-exclusives and fancy games console editions staying in Japan seems set to continue.