| Mini Review of the Sharp GX22 |
| Mini Review of the Sharp GX22 |
 |
The Sharp GX22 is a color flip phone with a built-in camera. That description hardly does this phone justice, since in reality it makes most of the other color phones look like cheap toys. Last Updated: 23-Oct-2003 |
Before reading this review, please read Some Thoughts on Phone Reviewing.
I would like to thank Carsmovies for showing me his Sharp GX22.
General
What is it about the GX22 that makes it
stand out from the others? The simple answer is the screen. If you
like color screens, you will absolutely go gaga over this one. It is, without a
doubt, the best color display of any phone I have thus far experienced. The
screen has a whopping 320 by 240 pixel resolution, and it can display 262,144
colors. The color clarity and brightness is as good as what you might expect
from a quality LCD computer monitor. In fact, I suspect that the dot density is
much higher on this screen than on your average LCD monitor.
Comparing this screen to a lesser one (such as the
Motorola T731, which I happened to have with me at the time) is enough to
make you cry. The lesser screen looks so bad by comparison that you see it for
the cheap toy that it is. Once you experience the quality of the screen on this
phone, you will be spoiled for anything else.
The 640 x 480 camera that is built into this phone is also amongst the best I
have seen. It handles varying light conditions with aplomb, unlike most other
camera phones that produce washed-out pictures in anything but the best of
lighting conditions.
It even works superbly in low light, but it also comes with a super-bright,
multi-colored LED for illuminating close objects. The LED can be set to green,
red, blue, white, yellow, or orange, depending upon what sort of lighting
effects you desire, and it has a redeye reduction feature. Carsmovies promised
to try and download the pictures we took, and once he sends them to me I will
attach them to this review.
The camera is also capable of taking mini-movies, but don’t expect too much from
these. The resolution is decidedly lower than the still camera, and the number
of frames per second is a bit low. Just the same, if you need a movie in a pinch
(with sound apparently), the GX22 can certainly do the trick.
Now most you know me better than that, and you know I wouldn’t gush over a phone
unless it had the goods where it counted. I’ll get to the RF performance and
audio quality in just a minute, but suffice it to say that the phone holds up
very well in these categories, even if those features doesn’t awe you like the
display.
The menus are extremely well laid-out, and good use is made of the screen’s
enormous real estate. The only aspect of the menus I found somewhat
disconcerting was the slightly slow response of the keys when they were hit in
quick succession. Those menus include many of the goodies we’ve come to expect
in modern high end phones.
However, the GX22 doesn’t have expandable memory or a computer-like operation
system as we find in the Nokia 3650. The phone
could do so much more, especially with the killer screen, and for about $800
(Canadian) it isn’t a cheap proposition.
RF Performance and Audio Quality
I’m happy to report that while the GX22
isn’t about to de-throne the Nokia 6310i for RF
and audio, it does hold its own very well. In fact, in one particular aspect
(namely outgoing sound quality), it is easily the
best I’ve ever heard. The outgoing quality is well-balanced, and it handles
background better than any other phones I’ve tested.
The incoming audio doesn’t quite reach those lofty heights however. The
reproduction and tonal balance are very good, but the earpiece seems to lack the
necessary low-end needed to give it that richness that make the Nokia 6310i and
3650 sound so good. Earpiece volume is more than acceptable, but it could do
with being just a tad louder.
RF performance also falls slightly short of
the 6310i, but in the final analysis it didn’t miss by all that much. I could
drag calls further down the Hall of Shame in Square One with my Nokia than with
the Sharp, but the distance wasn’t great enough to declare the Sharp an RF
light-weight (like the Ericsson T600 and
T68i for example).
In the end I couldn’t help be impressed with this phone. I do admit that the
screen and camera quality were big factors in this, since the lack of low-end on
incoming audio does disappoint me. I guess it’s the lack of really negative
things (aside from incoming audio) that impresses me the most. I don’t see
myself buying one in the near future, but I can certainly see myself
recommending it to anyone who wants a top-notch camera phone.
