This year has definitely been about the "notch". Ever since its debut in the Essential Phone and more popularly, the iPhone X, every phone maker has been rushing to incorporate one. The notch usually houses the front camera lens and sensor array, and the cutout lets the brand boast about a higher screen-to-body ratio. 

Within a year though, not only has the notch become a core part of every phone, it has also gotten smaller. Starting with a lengthy band, we've now seen a water-droplet style notch that houses just the circular camera lens. 

© Sharp

Taking things a notch further, Sharp Aquos R2 Compact is the world's first smartphone with two notches on the display and has been launched in Japan. There's a teardrop notch at the top for the front-facing camera, much like the OnePlus 6T and a notch at the bottom of the display to accommodate a fingerprint sensor.

While every other flagship phone today houses a huge display panel, the Aquos R2 Compact is a high-end phone in a small form factor that appeals to a limited audience. We've previously seen Sony follow a similar lineup of devices, and indeed there are many users out there who prefer a phone to be smaller. 

© Sharp

It has a  5.2-inch 2280 x 1080 LCD display and is powered by a Snapdragon 845 processor with 4GB of RAM. The phone runs Android 9 Pie and gets a 22.6-megapixel CMOS camera with auto-focus and f/1.9 aperture. The lens supports optical image stabilization. The front has an 8-megapixel sensor with f/2.2 aperture.

Due to the smaller form factor, the battery is limited to 2,500mAh and charges via a USB-C port. While every other smartphone maker has shifted the fingerprint scanner to the back or omitted it completely in favour of facial recognition, Sharp has been adamant to place the sensor on the front and hence required a secondary notch. 

© YouTube

Thankfully, Google has already mandated that two display cutouts are the limit, hence we won't be seeing another crazy phone with three notches. 

The phone will be available from mid-January in Japan. We highly doubt this phone will make it to India because Sharp simply doesn't sell smartphones in the country.