[轉貼] GX30使用心得 + 精彩實機照片

下面這篇使用心得是一位英國網友Ed在W@mob討論區上所發表的.

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This review will be organic, and will be updated with pics as the day goes by, and my thoughts over the next few weeks.

I bought my GX30 yesterday, and rather than test it for a week and then tell you what I think, I thought I would lay something down now for all you people planning to be among the first to purchase.

In the box
The phone, one battery, standard handsfree, charger, instruction manual, quick-start guide, Software CD-ROM, 8mb SD card.

Looks
Yeaaaah. Much better looking than the first shots that were unveiled by me on the FCC website (remember my scoop, phoneworld? )
It has a champagne gold effect in some lights, not to the extent of the e616, but definitely "golder" than the GX20. It has a new hinge section that has been well noted by Silverdreamer. This makes the GX30 look less bulky at the top. Its also very glossy around the sides and top, very shiny but catching a lot of fingerprints.

User Interface
Yeah, its logical. its fast. Everything is where it should be. But as usual, its bland. Do you know what, I would rather some post-modern ironic black and white icons than these. I will never buy another phone with a live menu on it. You people can hold me to this. I want change.

RF
Using the 900Mhz band in London, call quality is excellent. Speaking to my friend yesterday, he said it sounded fine. You know, Like I was on a mobile! Sorry guys, I put this in for anybody reading this from Hofo! (Hi guys!) Outside of North America, call quality is excellent almost everywhere, with the 900/1800Mhz signals very good at penetrating buildings and whatnot.. If you are thinking of importing, I can't help you with 850Mhz or 1900Mhz, sorry..

Screen
You wouldn't believe that a screen on a mobile could be better than the GX20, but this is. Not much in it though. Last night I took a picture of me and my girlfriend, and sent it to her GX20. She started complaining that the picture looked better on my screen, and when we put the 2 pics together, the difference was there. On the GX30, the picture was more colourful and looked "warmer" as a result, and a tiny bit sharper.
Best screen outside of Japan, without question.

Camera
The GX30's selling point, and it doesn't disappoint. Sharp invented the cameraphone back in 2000, and a lot of the time it shows, they make it so easy to take/send/receive pictures, and all the options are only a touch away. With the GX30, you press the camera button under the controller. After telling you to "check the macro switch", the camera starts up, a fraction faster than the GX20.

There are loads of different options, including 6 new frames to choose from, and 10 retouching options including emboss, sparkling and oil painting. There are also 12 stamps you can add to photos, including thought bubbles, crowns and funny lips.

You can choose from 5 different picture sizes, from 120x160, QVGA, VGA, 768x1024 and the maximum size, 858x1144. The QVGA size is taken for granted here, but it always amazes me that some manufacturers don't add a picture taking size for the wallpaper of the phone! So strange..

You can choose from 3 different shutter speeds, have a delay timer, take 4 shots in a row either manually or continuously, the options really are endless. The flash is brighter than the GX20, which is just crazy bright. You really can't look at it for too long now.

There is the macro option for closeups, option of fine or normal pics, 5 levels of brightness, 3 different shutter sounds.

The external screen takes self-portraits like the GX20, but it is vastly improved. Firstly because it is now lengthways like the internal screen, and also because it takes one shot and then refers you back to the main screen to see the result. GX20 owners will know what I mean.

Suffice to say this camera is light year ahead of any other, but ican still suggest a couple of improvements. I tried out an e616 the other day, and when it was using the viewfinder, one of the buttons niftily switched between photo and video, something I often feel like doing with a Sharp, but its a bit of a chore. The other improvement has got to be the refresh rate of the camera. Although better than the GX20 (I tested this by holding both the viewfinders up to the TV), its still a bit slow for me. Gettting prople to stand still for a photo from a phone is hard work, especially kids..

Live!
This phone was made for Live, and live was made for this phone. The speed of GPRS is so fast, its unbelievable. Its faster at browsing than my e808 which is using WCDMA. Its faster than my friends e313, which is also
a 3G phone. It wipes the floor with other live handsets.. Is it openwave's browser? The GPRS implementation? I don't know, but the way it caches stuff, and delivers pages fast, it should be every newbies first mobile internet experience. Fantastic. A bit gutted that there are less games available today than there were for the GX20 yesterday.. I was gonna buy bejeweled!

MP3 Player
I've only got the bundled 8mb card at the moment, so I put N*E*R*D's latest single on there, "she wants to move". No, I can't use it as a ringtone. It sounds fantastic coming out of the speaker, and really loud with standard headphones. Its definitely mono though.

GX20 improvements
are plentiful! The most obvious being endless memory, but there are little things as well, like the ability to use different lights for each contact, which I like a lot. The new speaker on the front and sound chip make poly ringtones sound even better. I have this Bob Marley Jammin ported over from my GX20, and it has acquired all kinds of new sounds on my GX30! Amazing!

Things that have not improved since the GX10 !
The downsides to this phone can be summed up with 3 C's.
The calendar, connectivity and customisation.

The calendar is not up to the standard of the most basic Nokia, lets say the 3100. You can add a note to a date, and thats it. No different types of note, not alarms or reminders, no to-do list.
The crazy thing about this continuing situation with Sharp phones is that in Japan they seem like masters of the calendar, with a screen that lets you show 6 months on screen at a time, and their latest low-end phone ([url=]V301SH[/url]) having some sort of rolling calendar app.
Are you telling me that *nobody*, absolutely *nobody* at Sharp or Vodafone headquarters needs a to-do list or reminders of their appointments? Like I said, this is on the most basic £50 phones, I shouldn't even have to ask. My 3310 had these options 3 years ago. I told Sharp about this when the GX10 came out. If they don't want to listen, well.... as Homer shouted to Moe as the tills were ringing loud "You just lost yourself a customer!"

Connectivity is a funny one. Although the Bluetooth has only been made available for headsets and car kits, connecting with a PC has been made easy with the SD card (transfers pics, sounds and videos, not games), and also the IR port and software. Its connecting with other phones that Sharp/Vodafone don't want you to do. The IR doesn't send/receive data on its own, neither does the bluetooth. You know what makes me laugh? the fact that Vodafone could tout this as their flagship phone, when there are Live! phones that do these very things that they have purposely left out.

The embarrassment that I had to deal with for the last 7 months, dealing with people with supposedly lesser phones... "Oooh, thats a nice picture/ringtone, infrared that to me...." "I can't" is set to continue. I don't think I'll bother telling people that this phone has Bluetooth! The V525 swaps data by bluetooth. The T610 swaps data by infrared and bluetooth. Why can't your flagship Live! phone?

As for customisation, I'm talking themes. Are you listening Vodafone??? Your fascination with using only 3 of the 65k/262k colours of a live phone is starting to really jar me, and everyone else I know with a Live! phone.

I love live!, but I don't like those icons. But if they must stay, you must give people the *choice* to change the icons. Slow-witted people who don't know any better can have the icons on screen forever, but with a selection of downloadable/chargable themes in place, anyone with half a brain should be able to remove them and make you money in the process! There, I've created a new revenue stream for Live! and it wasn't rocket science! Those icons/colours are so bland, hundreds of thousands would pay up to change them!

Live is supposed to be aimed at internet savvy young people in their late teens to early 30's, why should they have to use fisher-price menus? A lot of people say i-mode is your inspiration for live, well I will put up menus of the 505i series of i-mode phones later, and break it down to you slowly why they don't have crappy menus on their phones. Sharp have made some of the most innovative menus of recent times on their PDC handsets, but you aren't allowing them to do this. Sharp's menu (as seen on the GX31) is better looking than yours Vodafone, deal with it. Take a leaf out of DoCoMo's/T-mobiles book. Give manufacturers their individuality, but then change the *internet* icon to a live menu, and the games menu to a *Live game* menu. There. done. Branded, but pretty. A removable red theme and everyones happy, marketing, engineers, the lot.

And while we are talking about new revenue streams, I have two for you Vodafone. Not having MP3 ringtones was an oversight. There is even an MP3 ringtone section on Live, that I can't access. and really it would have made you a bit if cash. Schoolboy error.
The other thing is Java apps. I know you are big on games, and they are making you a lot of money, but what about the other things that the JBlend/VSCL combo can do? I want my IR remote control, my Java wallpaper that interacts with the phonebook, my navigation app. Put the apps on Live, let the people decide if the markets ready or not. That my challenge to you for this year.

So in conclusion, I want to make it clear to everyone that this is one hell of a phone. If you like taking/sending pictures, this is the one. Like with the GX20, you just feel like a pro phtographer when people are going through your pictures folder! "Yeah.. thats the Taj Mahal at sunset... Yeah I know its beautiful"

If you want IMO the best mobile internet experience in Europe, this is the one. The speed its downlaoding pages high in graphics is just good. No fuss, just does it.

If you want to play the latest Java games from the best developers in the world on the best screen available to you, this is the one. 3D bass fishing from Bandai. Oh yeah. time-wasting at its best!

But there are compromises.

I take my hat off to Sharp for delivering the finest components ever seen outside of Japan in a mobile phone. I can't actually believe I am holding a phone that, when I go to Japan later this year, will be comparable to High-end Vodafone handsets (and some low-end DoCoMo ones ). But I put my hat back on to Vodafone's demands on the software.

I hope they take note of what I'm saying because with the changes I've suggested, this would have been the best GSM phone ever. As it stands, its up there with the best, but it feels restricted. Hell, Vodafone paid Sharp a lot of money for it, so they should be able to do what they want with the spec, but the consumer shouldn't have to compromise like this.

Listen to this Sharp
I know you are in some lab somewhere, working on your 2.6 inch VGA screen with sound coming out of it, 3 megapixel camera lens, digital TV tuner and dog translator. Stop. Go and work on the calendar, open up the bluetooth and infrared, and add some themes (I saw them in the GX20 manual submitted to the FCC, did Voda make you take them out?) and you will leave everyone for dead.

I love this GX30, but when Sonyerivsson deliver the S700 at christmas, I will leave Sharp behind for the three C's I have highlighted, and many will join me. The S700 screen is QVGA, and SE sure as hell know how to make better use of what they have than the man who designed the Vodafone Live icons. Sharp won't be able to hide behind the greatest screen/camera combo for much longer...

Peace.

EDIT----
As a postscript, it is a testament to Sharp that the only company that has announced a phone with a similar spec (Sonyericsson S700) cannot deliver it until Q4. Sharp, as always, just delivered without fuss.