A few years ago, several people said that smartphones would approach point-and-shoot camera levels of photo quality, well beyond the iPhone 12 Pro Max and Samsung Galaxy S21 Ultra. It appears that day has come. Japanese tech giant Sharp just announced the Aquos R6, a smartphone with a huge 1-inch camera sensor.

Yes, this is the largest sensor ever put in a smartphone - aside from the 2014 Panasonic DMC-CM1 (which was not a huge hit). The results of Sharp's sample photo gallery are stunning, and this phone may give up the smartphone photography crown to Apple and Google.

The 20MP sensor under the Leica-branded lens has a focal length of 19mm and an f/1.9. That's a hell of a lot of performance; the Aquos R6 has only one camera, plus a time-of-flight sensor, so this giant camera is doing the heavy lifting. Whereas Google and Apple take a software-oriented approach to smartphone photography, Sharp is trying to overwhelm with sheer power.

But it's not just the camera that makes this phone stand out; it's the Snapdragon 888, 12GB of RAM, 128GB of storage, and a 5,000mAh battery. On the front, the phone looks like a very ordinary 2021 phone, with a central hole drilled for the front camera. That would be great, but wait until you check out the display specs.

The large 6.6-inch display is the result of Sharp's screen technology prowess: the Pro IGZO OLED has a resolution of 2,730 x 1,260, a peak brightness of 2,000 nits, and a refresh rate of 1 to 240 Hz Yes, you read that all correctly.

The Aquos R6 looks like the ultimate smartphone in many ways, running Android 11 right out of the box. Of course, Sharp typically offers phones for the Japanese market, so it is unlikely that we will see this device in the US anytime soon. Which is a shame, because I would love to get my hands on this camera and display.