These Star Wars phones aren’t the Androids you’re looking for
Always wanted a Star Wars phone? A Dark Side smartphone and a Light Side variant will be released in December. But these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. They only appear in Japan and in terms of network support that is a galaxy far, far away.
You could actually wait for it, because Disney, which now owns the Star Wars franchise, has been marketing phones in Japan with themes from its movies for years. With the upcoming release of Rogue One in December, the Star Wars smartphones produced by Sharp will hit the market.
The phones come from Softbank, a major provider in the mobile market in Japan. Of course there are Dark Side and Light Side variants, which only differ in the color scheme of the appearance – red/black and white/blue – and the software. They are similar in specifications, of course for the much-needed balance in the force.
The Android smartphones run on a Snapdragon 820-soc from Qualcomm, assisted by an amount of RAM of 3GB. The storage capacity is 32GB and users can add a microSD card. The screen has a diagonal of 5.3 inches and is an IGZO LCD with a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels.
That’s not very special, but these phones should distinguish themselves with their bloatware. In addition to things like Star Wars ringtones and live wallpapers, the phone has an expanded Star Wars skin over Android 6.0, including a separate alarm clock application and the must-have Star Wars emoji, so you can send your friends a BB8 or R2D2. In addition, there is a video app in which users can watch the film The Force Awakens, which was released last year until 2020. It also includes a digital Star Wars card game. Customers will also receive five metal figurines of new characters from Rogue One with the phone.
The phones will be released in Japan next week. They are not cheap: a separate model is currently on the site for around 816 euros. Importing makes little sense: Japan has mobile networks based on different frequencies and techniques. You may find the lack of network support disturbing, but Japanese smartphones hardly function on mobile networks in the Benelux.