Smartisan, a Beijing-based company you may not have heard of, manufactures premium flagships with unique designs and top-notch specs. Unlike most Chinese brands, its lineup comes at hefty prices with internal storage being its key selling point. The company offers up to 1 TB internal storage in addition to latest hardware mostly seen in international flagships.
Among its premium models, the Smartisan R1 is a sharp-cornered phablet that packs dual cameras, an impressive notched display, and some of the latest internal hardware.
The first thing to notice is the frontal notch, that looks quite similar to the Essential phone, and is quite smaller as compared to most notched-display phones these days. It has a grade 3 aluminum frame, and a 3D glass finish on top. It measures 153.5 x 74.5 x 7.7 mm and weighs 153 grams. The tiny notch houses both the front camera and an earpiece.
The R1 features a pressure sensitive IPS LCD, measuring 6.17-inch diagonally, at a resolution of 1080 x 2424. Aspect ratio is 18.7:9, contrast ratio is at 1500:1, and there’s 96% DCI-P3 color coverage. Moreover, there’s Corning Gorilla Glass 3 on the front for added protection.
As you’d expect, it packs a Snapdragon 845 SoC with eight Kryo 385 cores clocked at 2.8 GHz. It runs in tandem with an Adreno 630 and RAM comes in both 6 and 8 GB.
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Now this is where it gets interesting, you can get up to 1 TB internal storage along with an R1. There are four different variants available in total, which are 6 GB RAM with 64 GB storage, 6 GB RAM with 128 GB storage, going up a notch (no pun intended) you get 8 GB RAM with 128 GB storage, and then the top of the line variant has 8 GB RAM and 1 TB storage.
On the rear, it has a dual set up consisting of two Sony sensors. The main IMX363 can shoot 12 MP photos, at f/1.8 aperture, and is aided by a 20 MP IMX350 f/1.75 lens. It also sports 4-axis OIS for the main camera. Front facing camera is an impressive 20 MP unit, boasting an f/2.0 aperture size.
It runs Android Oreo, with the company’s own UI on top.
The R1 has a 3600 mAh battery and it also supports Qualcomm’s latest Quick Charge 4+. It is among the first few phones to support this technology, and comes with a QC4+ compatible charger out of the box. Color options are Carbon Black and Pure White.
The price groups are as follows:
You can check out more details on Smartisan’s official website.