Sharp GX10i

I purchased this phone in November, after getting a new job and deciding to treat myself! Getting my phone out after purchasing this was no longer a chore, and became more of a necessity each time someone passed me or came over to talk (for a chance to show off my new mobile!). It’s a stylish phone, advertised by David Beckham, and is therefore a cool phone to have!

It took me a while to get used to, but that is after upgrading from a phone from the stone ages, so all the new features dazzled me a little. After a few days, however, the phone and its features become more familiar and easier to use. It has a range of features, connection to Vodafone Live (internety thing!), polyphonic ringtones, a quality camera, java and normal games (preloaded and possibilities to add more) and MMS (picture messaging).

Camera
If I’m honest, this is one of the reasons I actually bought the phone – because I wanted one with a camera! After seeing friends with their camera phones, I must say that the GX10i has amazing quality when taking and storing pictures. The size of picture can be changed, and on the medium size a zoom feature allows you to get one step further to your subjects. Pictures can then be saved or you can continue snapping. It has a high capacity of pictures that you can save, something in the region of 60 pictures when using the medium picture size (which a little larger than the size of the screen itself). These pictures can then be messaged to friends (by MMS), used as backgrounds for the phone itself or sent to your computer (if you acquire a data lead – I recommend you do!).

Phonebook
Names can be stored you either your phone or the Sim Card. If storing to your phone you can associate numbers with a picture you have taken of that person which then flashes on screen when they are calling you. When storing numbers there are little extras, which I feel really jazz up your phone book – such as having the ability to group people into categories, friends, family, business, useful, VIPs etc. The number itself can also be classified by whether it is your correspondents Home number, mobile, office etc. With all these features, the phonebook is still surprisingly easy to get the hang of and takes no time at all to work out how to manage.

Sounds
There are plenty of sounds already on the phone when you purchase it. You can also download (from Vodafone live, or your own source) a range of polyphonic tones which can all be saved to your phone and used as a ringtone, a background to an MMS message or an alarm wake up (I currently wake up to the theme tune to Fraggle Rock! An amusing start to the morning!). Vibration alert can be selected if you do not want your phone to make a noise or if you want to make sure you will notice your phone is ringing if you are in a noisy environment. The vibration alert can also be selected to vibrate in time with the tone being played.

Fun and Games
When I purchased my phone, it already had games pre-loaded onto it. There are standard games, like collection hunter and a football penalty game as well as a Java games feature. You can purchase extra java games over the internet or in some mobile phone stores. Java games can be saved and returned back to, in case you need to make a call whilst playing! The phone also comes with a melody and tone editor, a feature which I have not yet used!

Profiles
Profiles are already loaded onto the phone, normal, in the car, meeting and silent are a few examples. These quickly change the settings of your phone to suit the levels of noise you want it to make or ringtone you wish playing. It is simple enough to edit a profile, changing the ringtone for example takes little time. A silent profile will disable all sounds on the phone and enable vibration alert so you still know if you are being called.

Organiser
The organiser contains the usual items on a phone. A calendar, calculator (which is easy to use!), clock and alarm and voice memo are the features on the GX10s organiser area.

Settings
A range of settings on the phone can be changed to make it personal to you. Changing the greeting message or picture shown when you phone is switched on, changing the background picture (wallpaper) of you phone, modifying settings for the backlight, changing the brightness of the backlight on the front display and the phone screen itself and changing options for display saving, which turns off your screen if you leave your phone flipped open for too long to save the battery. Security features, such as you pin number, can also be changed and selected in this area as well as call features, such as call divert.

Vodafone live
Internet for a phone basically. Ringtones, backgrounds, picture messages and more can all be found using this feature. It’s relatively cheap to use and won’t break the bank.

Messages
MMS can be selected if you wish to message a picture to someone else with a picture phone. SMS is the normal message system that we are used to, text messages. You can use a T9 predictive text to speed up the process. I personally find sending a text message becomes a little strenuous and annoying after a while, as the keys are a little difficult to manage especially if you are a quick texter! This is a small problem, and in no way out balances the features of the phone.

Battery and Extra comments
I went on a trip with work last week and fully charged my phone the night previous to going and the phone battery life almost lasted until the third day that we were there. Of course it changes with the amount you use your phone etc. but I feel 3 days for moderate use is quite a long life time of a battery!

So, I love this phone because of its vast array of features. Even adding names to a phonebook gives you a large amount of options. The phone can be personalised in so many ways, from wallpapers to welcome pictures and the camera is of outstanding quality.

The options for adding extras to the phone are also extent. Java games can be purchased, ringtones quickly saved and changed etc. Adding a data lead can mean that your pictures can also appear on your home computer, another easy approach to getting more from this phone.

Overall, I was amazed with my purchase and I found it excelled any expectation I had of it! An excellent purchase, well worth the money!