Check out the new phones of the week

23 May, 2015

With the flagship announcement season all but over, most of the mobile world has already turned its attention to rumors and speculations of future models, like the Samsung Galaxy A8 and even the Galaxy Note 5.

However, during the past week, there were quite a few new device announcements that definitely deserve their fair share of attention.

First up, are Oppo's two new handsets - the R7 and R7 Plus. They differ in both size and styling. The smaller Oppo R7 has a more traditional exterior with a 5.0-inch AMOLED display and all-metal body with a nice premium feel. The R7 Plus, on the other hand, boasts a significantly larger 6.0-inch AMOLED screen, stretching almost edge to edge on the phone's body. The new bezel-less design definitely makes it stand out, but, it turned out to be more of a marketing gimmick, as, we did find quite a bit of black bezel still surrounding the display itself.

Moving on, LG surprised us this week with not one, but two new device announcements. After the Korean company arrived a little tardy with its flagship LG G4, it wasted no time in announcing two mid-range phones that take after the curved flagship's styling. The G4 Stylus is bigger than the G4. It features a 5.7” 720p display and a 1.2 GHz quad-core CPU and 4G LTE support or a 1.4 GHz octa-core CPU limited to 3G networks.

Then, there is the G4c. Is is the compact or mini version of the flagship. It has a 5.0-inch 720p display and is powered by a 1.2 GHz quad-core CPU. Both phones run Android 5.0 Lollipop with LG UX 4.0 on top. RAM is limited to 1GB, while the 8GB storage is expandable via a memory card slot. Both phones have a 5MP camera in the front for taking selfies, with the main shooter differing in megapixels - 13MP for the G4 Stylus and 8MP for the G4c. There are also other notable differences between the two, which you can check in the detailed specs pages.

Last, bet not least, we have two new smartphones by Sharp. The Sharp Aquos Crystal 2 is the successor to the bezel-less Aquos Crystal mid-ranger from last year and now comes with a bigger 5.2-inch screen, waterproofing and mobile wallet support. The signature bezel-less style, however, is still present. Other specs include a 720p S-PureLED display, 2GB of RAM and 16GB of onboard storage.

After the new mid-range Crystal 2, Sharp unveiled the flagship version too – the Aquos Xx. Its screen is bigger too, grown to a massive 5.7", and the chipset has been upgraded to the latest Snapdragon 810. The screen is an S-PureLCD (Sharp-developed tech) with 1080p, and the frame is all aluminum. RAM is set at 3GB and 32GB for internal storage. Cameras include a 13MP main shooter and a small 2MP one on the front.

Below is a table of the aforementioned devices for more info, if needed.