Leica introduces its first own smartphone, the Japan exclusive: Leitz Phone 1

If you’ve followed Leica’s footprint in the mobile imaging realm, you’d usually turn your head to Huawei when Leica is mentioned but as situation turn out of favor for the Chinese smartphone maker, Leica carries the flag itself into the mobile imaging industry as it introduces its own Leica smartphone device with the Leitz Phone 1.

The company has partnered with Sharp to bring the smartphone into reality but surprisingly though, the device will not be available to the rest of the world and instead will be exclusively distributed in Japan with SoftBank.

The Leitz Phone 1 has the same main aesthetics as the recently launched Sharp Aquos R6 with a few differences mainly the circular camera module on the back with a Leica-branded lens cap. The main camera on the phone is it’s main feature and we mean main as in just 1 camera sensor unlike most of today’s multi-sensor setups, but the huge advantage here is the camera’s massive 1-inch sensor at 20 MP having a f/1.9 Aperture lens with a 19mm equivalent focal length.

It includes a 6.6-inch IGZO OLED display with a 2,730×1,260 pixel resolution screen and features an adaptive 240Hz display refresh rate. and a camera punch hole that comes with a 12.6 MP Selfie sensor.

Serving up features of this phone is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 processor paired to a 12 GB system RAM and an expandable storage of 256GB which accepts microSD cards of up to 1TB in capacity. There’s a 5,000mAh battery on-board which should be able pretty much suitable for its picture taking tasks.

Other features of the phone includes an ultrasonic fingerprint scanner and a selection of connectivity options including a fast Wi-Fi 802.11ax with dual-band Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 5.2, VoLTE and a USB-C port.

The Leitz Phone 1 will be available exclusively in Japan this coming July in an single Leica Silver color option at a price of JPY 187,920 on SoftBank website.