This is my review of the Sharp GX20..
Display
The first feature that strikes you is the much talked about screen.
enough has been said about it for you to realise its something special.
I can't really emphasise the quality enough, but what I would say is that a screen like this makes cameras on phones appear less of a gimmick to the general public. The screen is better than my sisters £400 Canon sureshot (or whatever), and it is comparable to my Sony cybershot P7.
In fact upon inspection, it is better than my cybershot. I can't see myself buying another handset without a QVGA display, but since there isn't another one on the horizon, I'll be sticking to this for a little while.
The external display is a bit washed out, but serves as a good viewfinder for self-portraits.
Camera
The features this camera has are ridiculous. First of all it akes pics in 3 sizes, 120x160, 240x320 and 480x640. Add to that the mobile light which allows you to take pics in the dark, in 7 different colours..
There is a continuous shooting option, which allows you to take up to 4 shots in a row, and you can choose between fine or normal quality to save memory. Once a picture is taken, there are still so may options.
You can edit a picture in 3 ways. Retouching it allows you 12 options like embossing, sepia, sparkle, oil painting and ripple effects, all standard photoshop but in your hand! Then there are 6 (boring) frames that you can put round a picture. finally, you can add stamps to pics like a moustache or big red lips. If you want to photograph text, there is a switch on the lens that makes it possible to focus on objects 5cm away, and you can take a picture of some writing, and make a visual note.
The video camera is pretty basic, it shoots in normal or fine quality, with sound. You can also shoot video with any of the flash colours lit up, or all 7 lights flashing alternately, to convince people you are in some 70's disco!
User interface
Less of an evolution from the GX10, more of a revolution. There is a
dedicated "Live!" key, leaving the soft keys to access the messages and the still camera. Pressing left on the 5 way controller takes you to your Java apps, while pressing right goes straight to your pictures. The main menu is now laid out in a nine icon grid, and althought the icons are a familar red, white and blue, they look shaded and sharp (pardon the pun!).
Messaging
SMS and MMS names have changed to the more user friendly "text" and "Multimedia". MMS now has a separate memory status, to take into account that it does not share the same 2mb memory as the Java, video, pictures and sounds.
you can save SMS to phone memory, although i havent had the handset long enough to find out how many it can hold.
The third icon on the messages menu is 'album', and clicking on it takes you to "Vodafone live Studio", with a coming soon message about online storage for pictures that you can access from yor handset and share with other users.
There is no email client, but there is vodafone mail that lets you get to your pop3 email in a couple of clicks (no attatchments). "messages" "4"-"2" and then clicking freeserve took me straight to my inbox, although you setup access online.
Vodafone Live!
Vodafone live and the mobile internet look very good on the screen, with a small clear font that allows 15 lines of any page to be displayed onscreen.
The live! video downloads service is absolute crap, but at least its free. The only downloads on there appear to be "I'm a celebrity..." clips, or funny animal moments.
This is the last year of 3's premiership agreement, and I expect Voda to get the deal for the next 3 years, so I expect the service to improve.
The GX20 is capable of displaying 3D Java screensavers, and in Japan these are very popular. It won't be long before live will be supplying these, especially with the disney content that just popped up recently.
Surprisingly, there are far fewer games available for the GX20 compared to the GX10, probably to do with optimisation on the higher res screen. The phone comes with a high-res game called bomblink (meh), but the 2 that I downloaded seemed like they had been stretched to fit the GX20 screen. and moto GP had no sound, which didn't impress me much.
Improvements over the GX10
Where do I start, there are little niggly things and massive changes.
The phone is lighter and thinner, and feels like much less of a brick as a result.
The grid menu is good, always an improvement over the series 40 Nokia style that the GX10 employed.
Speed dials work for numbers stored in the phone memory, not just sim.
The way MMS sends in the background is fantastic, something I'm sure they picked up from Nokia.
When you scroll through your phonebook, if you have a picture for that contact it pops up, a nice touch.
bad things
-There is still no alarm when you put reminders in the calendar.
-Call timers aren't separated into dialled and received, which is good for those with a certain amount of minutes a month, wanting to keep track.
-The memory. although the 2mb is only for Java, sounds, video and pics, (sms, mms and contact info have there own memory storage space) its not enough.
-On Sharp's Japanese handsets, you can assign the mobile light colours to different callers. For some strange reason they omitted this feature from the GX20.
Conclusion
It is the finest phone I have ever owned, and I have had a few.
It is not really for anyone coming from a smartphone, the lack of memory makes the phone seem very claustraphobic at times.
Until Japanese manufacturers (NEC, Sharp) learn to play by European rules with regards to connectivity (with full working infrared and bluetooth with all the
profiles), they will never capture the smartphone majority.
I can imagine that the next of the GX series will include an SD card slot, which will go some way to redressing the memory and connectivity problems in one swoop, but until then, they just missed my vote for phone of the year by a whisker. It is however, the best GSM camera phone by a mile. This phone will make every manufacturer sit up and take notice, because Sharp have just set a new standard.
