We have to be very honest with you. We were not expecting such move and announcement from AU, one of Japan’s largest Mobile Operators. But it was about time that Sharp kicked out a real Linux successor to our beloved Zaurus… And the JN-DK01 (a developer terminal) and the IS01 (its users friendly version) are just what we were all expecting for a very longtime!

Available in black or light Blue, the IS01 will hit the Japanese market this June, and features a 5.0 touchscreen with a 960×480 resolution and featuring Sharp’s “New Mobile ASV” display, a Dual camera with one of 5.27Mpix and one front facing of only 0.43Mpix. Other specs include a full QWERTY keyboard with a 11.2mm key pitch, a 1Seg TV tuner, IRDA & WiFi BG, Aquos Blu-Ray transport allowing you to rip Blu-Ray movies directly to your IS01 a 1Seg TV Tuner, Bluetooth, FM Transmitter, 4GB of internal memory(3GB available for data usage) and of course a 3G connection using AU CDMA technology as well all Android and Google Thingy.

The JN-DK01, is indented however for a pure development purpose where both Sharp and KDDI gives companies the possibility to completely rewrite the OS, Customize it or Tweak it for their own purpose and needs.

Both the IS01 and JN-DK01 weight 227g and have a size of 83x149x17.9mm

Finally, the drawback of these 2 models are the lack of Multi-touch rending difficult to manipulate web-pages (Zoom-In Zoom-Out), as well as an overall “cheap” plastic used for our MID casing. But overall impression and speed was pretty good.