Sharp GX30

...got myself a brand new Sharp GX30. I have only had Nokia's in the past, so I was a little wary about investing in a phone from a company that makes my microwave. After playing with my other half's GX20, I figured, "what the hey". I signed on the dotted line, paying absolutely zip for my phone. Since I have been with Vodafone for such a long time, and since my bills average about £110 a month, they were happy to offer me this deal. On average ...
...so it seems as though Sharp has learnt from its mistakes. It can last around 2 and a bit days on standby, and about 6 hours of constant use. Now that doesn't sound that great, but remember that screen sucks up a lotta juice. Obviously using the camera is a tremendous drain on the battery.

Vodafone. Vodafone. Vodafone!!!!
A major dislike I have on this phone is the Vodafone branding. There are Vodafone logo's on the outside and ... more

I joined Vodafone over 2 years ago, and as my latest upgrade I have got myself a brand new Sharp GX30. I have only had Nokia's in the past, so I was a little wary about investing in a phone from a company that makes my microwave. After playing with my other half's GX20, I figured, "what the hey". I signed on the dotted line, paying absolutely zip for my phone. Since I have been with Vodafone for such a long time, and since my bills average about £110 a month, they were happy to offer me this deal. On average though, you will pay anything from £50 to £300 for this phone, depending on what tariff you sign up to.

The Basics
Outwardly, this looks quite understated compared to some of the other phones out there. No fancy metal body, swivelling screens or other gimmicks on this one. It’s made out of reasonable quality plastic, with metal-effect details. Note "metal effect" - they do scratch and peel easily. On the front you will find a small colour display that is really useful - it has indicators for signal, battery, GPRS, time, alarm and the date. It’s totally customizable - you can change the background wallpaper, style of clock and the date/time format. The screen also displays the details of incoming calls, accompanied with a picture if there is one associated with the person calling. This is really handy - it means that at a glance you can see who is calling without having to even read the name/number.
Just above the screen you will see a small light, and above this the camera. More on this feature later, cos it’s a biggie. You will also notice a proper, decent speaker. Again, more on this later.
Looking at the side of the phone you have volume control, macro switch for the camera, headphone socket and memory card socket. It is here that I have my first bugbear with the phone. The covers for the memory card and the charger socket are very, very flimsy. One hard pull and I’m sure they would come off. They are only attached with a thin piece of rubber. Worrying, for a £300+ phone.
On the back you have a removable cover for the battery...and that’s about it. Well, that and an infra-red port just next to the aerial.

Open it up
The single first thing that you will notice about this phone is the internal screen. WOW. It’s big, and the resolution and colour depth are amazing. Pictures look lifelike, and almost as good as a regular computer screen. No washed out colours and small display here. The resolution is 244x258 (I think) for you stat fans, but the important thing is that it’s twice as big as the competition.
The keypad is nicely spaced and has a dedicated camera button, as well as the usual. Its backlit in green - any other colour would set this phone apart aesthetically. I don't like green!

What can ya do with it?
Lots, is the simple answer. At its most basic level, it’s a phone. So I will start off by telling you what its like, as a phone.
The signal strength and call quality seem to be fairly high. What has worried me is that recently there has been a lot of interference on the phone recently. Stuff like garbled speech, or white noise, or random 'BEEP' noises. Usually dialling again eradicates these, so I can't say if it’s a network problem or one that is unique to the phone. I am leaning towards it being a network fault, though.
The phonebook is absolutely cavernous. I will never be able to fill it. What’s handy is that each entry can have 3 phone numbers, 2 email addresses, a normal address and a note. They can also have their own ringtone, and a picture. It’s more of an organiser really!
As any phone does, you can text with this one. What makes this one stand out is the ability to link as many as 8 messages up to make one huge message. It’s no longer 'Short Message Service', but an essay writing one! Again, this part of the phone is not perfect. It has got a dictionary, but you can't add words to it. So if your like me and use your own vocab when talking to your mates, it’s pretty useless. If you write full sentences with proper spelling, it really speeds up writing.
The last major messaging function is 'MMS' or photo messages. You can attach pictures, sound and even video to your message and send it. A cool feature is the ability to have 'slides' like a presentation so you can direct how the message will appear. You can also send these as 'postcards'. This means you can send it, and Vodafone will turn it into... a postcard! It the gets posted to an address of your choice. An expensive feature, but very cool.

So what else does it do?
The phone comes with built in applications such as a voice recorder, calculator and a calendar. These are pretty basic functions to be honest and not very spectacular. It’s important to remember that this phone is not a smartphone - you can't install Word on it!
What it does do well, though is play MP3's. On loudspeaker. Yes that’s right; the phone doubles up as a surprisingly effective personal boombox. Of course the speaker is not up the standard of a hifi, but it holds its own for its size. Thing is, it just plays MP3's. There is no jukebox function or playlists or anything like that. Also, given that it can play MP3's, it would have been nice to use them as ringtones - but it’s not possible. Why? Who can say, although there are murmurings that Vodafone have locked some features that are enabled in the Jap version of the phone. I don't know this, so I won't speculate.

Smile, you're on Candid Camera
The raison d'etre for this phone is quite simply the camera. It was the first 1 Megapixel cameraphone on the market. The fact that it's 1MP means that the photos are remotely useable. I have printed them out onto 6x4 and they are not too bad - comparable to a basic standalone camera for sure. There are numerous features on this camera. The ability to altar size and quality is expected, but the ability to adjust the shutter speed is not. Yes that’s right, you can adjust the shutter speed - a 1st for a phone I'm sure. The camera features a flash, again a rarity in the mobile phone world. What's cool about this is that you can change the colour, from red to blue to about 10 others. You can even set it to 'disco' for some crazy effects.
The camera features some very basic image editing facilities too. You can retouch it and add effects to it add a frame to it or add objects to it. You can also crop it. Again, more than the average phone. The addition of a macro switch means you can take photo's indoors or outdoors in perfect focus.
Last but certainly not least, the phone lets you take self portraits in a very clever way. At the press of a button, the outer screen turns into a viewfinder so you can face the phone at yourself.
Brilliant. As a final goodie, the camera even has digital zoom.
Its not all smiles with the camera though, the update on the main screen is a little slow, especially at high resolutions and the camera is very sensitive to movement.

I can be Quentin Tarentino, me.
The camera on the phone also doubles up as a video camera. This is used for taking short clips for messages, or longer ones to store on the phone. The quality is pretty ropey, but it’s a very fun feature ant the ability to use it with the multicoloured light means some very silly videos are conceivable. The max video size is only 400kb though - not that good when you consider the phone can handle 512MB SD cards! Incidentally this 400kb limit (around 30secs) applies to playback as well, so you can't store a film on the memory card to watch on the way to work, for example. This is another limitation that has been allegedly implemented by Vodafone and is not present in the Jap version. Understandable in copyright terms but it would have been nice nonetheless.

N'sync eat your heart out.
The phone is Bluetooth compatible, so you can wear those ridiculous headsets. The version of Bluetooth in the phone is very basic, and can't be used to communicate with a computer. Bluetooth profiles are not supported either.

Battery
The battery is actually not that bad. The GX20 had a really poor battery life, so it seems as though Sharp has learnt from its mistakes. It can last around 2 and a bit days on standby, and about 6 hours of constant use. Now that doesn't sound that great, but remember that screen sucks up a lotta juice. Obviously using the camera is a tremendous drain on the battery.

Vodafone. Vodafone. Vodafone!!!!
A major dislike I have on this phone is the Vodafone branding. There are Vodafone logo's on the outside and the inside, and the entire menu system is decked out in Vodafone red and white. Horrible, and by no means a good use of the screen. I would love to be able to change this to a multi colour design that looks fantastic, but again this is a luxury only Jap users of the phone will have.

PC Connectivity
I have waffled on for a fair bit now, so I will try and wind things up. The phone comes with a CD that has PC connectivity software on it. You can use this to up/download ringtones, photos and other gubbins to and from the phone. What you can't do however is download games. Games must be downloaded through WAP or GPRS services. Basically it means you can't download any free games form your PC to your phone. Bah. The software itself is quite complicated - it’s easier in my opinion to invest in a SD card reader and just drag and drop. You can connect the phone to your PC through either infrared or through a data cable - you have to buy this separately.

Anything else?
Other random features that I have forgotten include the ability to play polyphonic ringtones, vibrate alert, and the ability to customise any event on the phone with a sound. You can even create your own sounds with the Melody Editor programme supplied on the phone. This is pretty difficult to use though - Mozart I am not.

To sum up.
The phone is a pretty advanced bit of kit, capable of many random functions. Ultimately though, whether or not it’s suitable for you depends on whether or not you need the 1MP camera. You can always buy a separate digital camera if photography’s your thing, and the quality will be better. The other features are good, but not excellent - it doesn't stand out from the crowd in any aspect apart from that damn camera. The integration with Vodafone is a personal thing, I don’t like it but you may. It’s fairly robust and has survived a few knocks, but overall I think it lacks the 'WOW' factor.
 

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