Leica's latest smartphone is a relaunched Sharp Aquos R6 with a tweaked interface and a large, round, metal lens cap. Yes, a lens cap.
Why does EVERYONE buy a Leica?
Leica is known for two things. Extremely high-quality cameras, and even more extreme prices. The cheapest M-series body costs $7,795, without a lens, and the second-hand market is just as big: this unusable, fire-damaged 1968 M4 sold at auction in May for £1,488 ($2,070). The new Leitz Phone 1, on the other hand, is just an Android phone, albeit with a large camera sensor. What’s going on?
“The Leitz Phone 1 is a rebadged Sharp Aquos R6. Leica doesn’t try to hide the rebadge part, though,” Eden Cheng, founder of software company WeInvoice, told Lifewire via email. “[Smartphone company SoftBank] proudly demonstrated the phone alongside the Aquos R6 at the keynote, and Leica has made numerous tweaks to the entire design of the phone.”
The Leitz Phone 1 (Leitz is Leica's parent company) has a custom lens array and a new, custom user interface. It has a 1-inch, 20-megapixel, ƒ1.9 camera, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor, 256GB of storage, and 12GB of RAM. The Leica version puts its lenses in a circular turret, instead of Sharp's rectangular design, and adds a magnetic lens cover.
