Leica makes its first smartphone official: it’s Leitz Phone 1, a top-of-the-line Android with a 1-inch lens and lens cap, like “real” cameras.
From the long-standing partnership with Huawei, which allowed Leica to put its logo on the company’s top-of-the-line cameras from 2016 onwards, to a smartphone entirely under its own name. The historic German company, well known in the field of photography, recently also collaborated with Sharp to which it provided the 7-element Summicron lens for the Aquos R6 smartphone, official since a few weeks.
Now Leica has decided to lengthen the step, to walk on its own legs despite it is still a rather timid attempt. The first smartphone of Leica in fact, called Leitz Phone 1, is not that a Sharp Aquos R6 reworked in aesthetics and renamed and that will be sold exclusively in Japan, by Softbank. The German company has therefore decided to step out of its comfort zone – the production of camera lenses – announcing the first smartphone in its history, although, as mentioned, it is not a product entirely designed by the men of Leica. Which, however, have done nothing to mystify the reality: the Leitz Phone 1, during the launch event, was proudly shown alongside the product from which it derives, the Sharp Aquos R6, without any attempt being made to hide the close relationship between the two.
Leica’s care for the design
Leica, however, has put hands on the aesthetics of its Leitz Phone 1 to differentiate it as much as possible from the Sharp Aquos R6. Shape and size of the camera group, for example, are clearly different: on Leica’s smartphone there is a circular camera group that closely resembles the arrangement of some recent smartphones from Huawei, while on Sharp’s product the cameras are arranged within a rectangular module.
In short, judging by the rear surface alone it is almost impossible to find any relationship between the two Android smartphones, unless you know the history. However, Leica wanted to pay homage to the world from which it comes, the world of cameras, equipping the Leitz Phone 1 with a circular magnetic lens cap that closely resembles the one typically affixed to the lens of “real” cameras. On Leitz Phone 1 the purpose is the same, to protect from bumps and scratches the camera group (which are the most valuable and delicate part of this device) and of course provide an extra boost to the style.
Features and price of Leitz Phone 1
In terms of technical features Leitz Phone 1 is superimposable on the product from which it derives, the Sharp Aquos R6. It features a 6.6-inch IGZO OLED display with a high refresh rate, Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 888 chip with 12GB of RAM and 256GB of storage with microSD support for memory expansion.
The house highlight is of course in the cameras, with the Leitz Phone 1’s striking one-inch, 20-megapixel rear prime lens with 7-element Summicron lenses. Leica has customized Android 11 with its “predominantly monochrome” user interface.
The fingerprint reader is in the display, there’s IP68 certification against water and dust, Bluetooth 5.2, Wi-Fi 6 and a big 5,000 mAh battery. Leica Leitz Phone 1 for the moment is sold exclusively in Japan for the monstrous figure of 187,920 yen, which is the equivalent of over 1,400 euros at current exchange rates. Still no news on a possible marketing in other regions.