i've always had a nokia but ealier this year i fancied a change and got the sharp GX1, this mobile phone has been one of the best i have ever had- in fact i even sold my nokia 7650 and kept this one. one of the down sides is that it's hard to find ring tones to download for the gx 1,the camera isnt the best going but it's better than on the ericson t300.fun games. you can set your friends picture to come up on the screen when they ring you which is a nice touch.a good phone all in all.

I almost didn't buy this Sharp GX1 mobile phone because at first sight it was huge, but when I was finally persuaded, I was excited that I had a new colourful camera phone with infrared capabilities on a new tariff.

To my dismay however, I had infinite troubles sending MMS, and realised that I had a glorified pocket Atari. I am not a mobile phone games player, but the GX1s have not been worth a sniff at.

I was sold down the river on this one regarding its infrared capabilities - it doesn't offer pc-laptop picture/MIDI transfer, which would have done wonders to enhance this otherwise agonisingly slow, mutton-dressed-as-lamb phone. This is an exceptionally average piece of equipment.

I would recommend phone buyers to pick up the Sony Ericsson T60 any day. That is a wonderful phone.

Ok. So I went into the O2 shop in April this year and wanted a basic phone and off-peak tarriff. I was blown away to see a camera phone with a colour screen for free! So I took it.

3 months, several emails and many hours on the helpline later, O2 finally relented and offered me a new phone at no cost: a choice between a Nokia 7250 or 3650.

This was only after the last straw of spending two hours in the O2 shop last Saturday, 12th July, having my GX1 tested for why precisely it cannot send MMS properly, while it amusingly crashed 7 times. 2 hours. The O2 staff were powerless to help me. I left the shop (being kicked out at 5.45pm) having learnt that O2 shop staff are utterly powerless beyond flogging phones.

Bummer.

I got straight onto the blower and shouted, politely, but most aggrievously to the O2 lady. She said that in this "unusual" instance they would give me the choice of the 3650 or 7250, but only because of "a number of known issues with the GX1."

I'm happy now, but I had to work HARD to get my grief rewarded. Let's face it, both the 3650 and 7250 are very sweet replacements for such a let-down. I chose the former for its pseudo-PDAness. Very nice. But the 7250 is damn sexy....! What a decision....

So my advice for any poor fool like me who got a GX1? Complain. A lot. 02 and Sharp have made mistakes. You shouldn't have to pay for that yourself!

Peace.

Since switching from Vodaphone to O2 and the sharp GX1 we have had nothing but problems. We got 3 of them and they all have poor reception if any at all, they have been switching themselves off, we have lost so many text messages that were never received. The menus are not user friendly and you seem to scroll for ages to get what you want. One phone stuck on vibrate for 3 hours!!!! despite removing battery etc. They have been a nightmare and I wouldn't recommend them to anyone

I have always owned Nokia phones before and, although I was definitely ready for a change, I was worried about making the right decision about which phone to change to. The Sharp GX1 is quite simply the best phone I've ever owned. It looks great, sounds amazing and I'm still really enjoying it 5 months after I bought it. I was a bit worried about it's size - it's significantly larger than most other modern phones - but in my opinion its superior features make it far better than the smaller phones available at the moment. Great phone!

i bought my phone for £250 which i thought was worth paying as i was under the impression it would be alot easier to store photos on a pc once the phone memory was full. because of how difficult this is the phone should be cheeper. saying that the screen on the nokia picture phones is so tiny u can hardly see the photo you've just taken and its good not having to fiddle around with a add on camera.
and the navigation is the easiest i have ever used. Its good if you know someone with the same phone i tried to use IR but with no success. x

I thought it strange that there was no phone book menu as such, and its rather annoying that when in the names list, you have to press the relevant key twice before it goes to names starting with those letters. The menus are undoubtedly long, but I think they've just tried to pack as much as they can into the phone and thats just how its ended up! What do you all think of the texting? I'm afraid I'm a bit biased towards nokia on that, used to send a msg on my 3330 in about 5secs flat! But it's not bad i suppose. This is my first contract phone and I am very impressed overall with it. Surprised that 02 didn't include all the helpline and 'extra' numbers in the pack like u normally get with pay as you go - how do you know what number to call if its lost or stolen or u want to change tarriff etc? Its not even on the phone!

The gx1 is good in essence, it has a built in camera which is good for ease of use, however it lacks the quality of other built in camera models such as the 7650.It is not compatable with the javascript, so no downloadable games here, and i'd find it easier to navigate my way through the brazilian jungle than the menu system of the gx1. Marks for it looking like a phone but thats about as far as it goes i'm afraid. It also lacks software upgrades due to no symbian os.

good phone. nice features. couldn't really ask for too much better.

Only mmO2, can set it up wrong when purchased.
Brilliant phone, recommended over anyphone as picture quality and build in superb.

Robant (previous reviewer) was correct in his assumptions about O2 and Sharp. They have basically ensured there is no way you can move pics/sounds between the phone and your pc. This will be because they want to make as much money as possible from dial up fees for ringtones and pictures.
I have made every effort to enable data tranfer to or from my phone .
I have tried the IR transmitter - NO JOY
I have tried the data cable - NO JOY

Sadly to put the record straight it is NOT POSSIBLE. The data cable like the IR only allows the modem function.

Any photos you take with the phone cannot be moved onto your pc. You cannot use file attachments on e-mails accessed on WAP on this phone.

I have hassled O2 and Sharp to develop some software so that (like most other picture phones)
you CAN move files to/from your PC.
They have both fobbed me off and denied responsibility. They know they are in the wrong.

The only way you can get new pics on your phone is through them being MMS'd through to you or through accessing the ringtones and pictures websites (both methods usually cost a fortune!)

Furthermore and this is a really bad one - You cannot MMS your pictures to any non-sharp picture phones. So forget about sending your Nokia owning friends a snap. What a huge drawback.

This phone has the potential to be an absolutely awesome buy. It plays wav files, you can customise your caller picture display and you can take instant low quality snaps.

However it falls down on the fact there is an utter lack of support from O2 and Sharp in user functionality.

That is there is no compatibility with non-sharp phones
(you can receive but not send)
and no software to enable phone-pc transfers.

WHAT A SHAME!

These 2 huge drawbacks will stop Sharps first phones really taking off.

My message to Sharp if they read this - sort out those 2 problems and you will really take off in the phone market.

On the whole the Sharp GX1 is an okay 'phone and camera. But it has a couple of issues I simply wanted to note.

Firstly, although the phone has an IR connection to enable it to be used as a modem, you are forced into the totally ludicrous position of having to MMS your pictures to an on-line server, then connect your PC to the internet (maybe even using the 'phones gprs modem) to upload the pictures again. This simply invokes my cynical nature that O2 (and maybe others) are looking to cash in, rather than give us access to phones with useful features.

Secondly, the phone has alarms, and it also has a calendar on which you can create a schedule. What you can't do is link alarms to calendar events!

I think we're getting there, but two really useful features have been nobbled, making the phone more superficial, than really useful.

Oh - don't forget your tripod (lol) if you want steady pictures.

To be honest, I will only use the camera to, maybe, record an accident or to use personalised wallpaper.

Some places say this 'phone has voice dialling - it doesn't.

I still give this 'phone 10*s on VFM, because I didn't have to pay for it, O2 are issuing it as a free upgrade. As I bought my previous phone, I get to keep both! I didn't need to upgrade, just took it as a very nice freebie - Thanks to O2 for that!

This phone is value for money now only 49.99 from O2 !!, this phone has features which elevates it above other phones, like the composer where you can make you own ringtone from a varity of tones and instrumnets. You can take up to 80 meduim sized pictures, when you run out of space you can send them to your own space on the o2 website. Best of all now the MMS is now compatble to Orange and T-Mobile phone users so you can send pics to your mates on other networks

I got this camera FREE with a contract with O2. The camera is superb in sound quality and ease of use. The large screen makes everything very, there is a white background on the screen and the images are crystal clear. The camera is easily used and 80 pictures can be stored, this is particularly good as I can produce wallpaper onto the screen of the children. I have had some difficulty in sending the pictures to an e-mail address. This is an excellent phone both as a first time phone or as an up-grade.

I wanted to upgrade to a camera phone, and also wanted to change networks because I was getting very poor reception in south and east London. Having briefly researched the available camera- phones I decided on the Sharp GX1 because it had a built-in camera (an attachment would be too much bother, kludgy, and defeats the purpose of having a 'built-in' camera), and wasn't too chunky in size (don't like flip-opens). *** OVERVIEW ***: I have had it a week now and can say I am fairly satisfied overall. Although it's slightly long in size, it is the most stylish built-in camera phone in my opinion, and does not make you look like a geek-carrying PDA (think Nokia 7650). I got it for FREE as an upgrade which is a bargain. You will not want to go back to a non-colour phone after getting used to exceptional use of a large, high-resolution colour screen. *** BASICS ***: From the previous reviews I was a bit concerned about 'awkward menu navigation', but I would put that to rest, it's not bad at all. There are loads of options throughout which can make some processes a bit cumbersome, such as dialling a number not in quickdial or call-lists. My only complaint here is that there is no quick way to go straight to a message editor. Also regarding that, I don't like the fact that you have to 'hold down' a key to flip between entry modes instead of just flipping through with a keypress. Also it is slightly sticky in entry, although less noticeable when you take keypress sounds off. I would also expect a phone that has storage for images to be able to hold 100s of SMS messages but it does not. But other than that the message editor is top notch with exceptional use of the space available - you never need to scroll a message again! Last calls and timers are all there. The ringtones are obviously polyphonic, and a few melodies are there including an elaborate editor but I haven't experimented yet. The games are okay, great colour and resolution, although a bit sluggish. Inexplicably, you can't have numbers saved on the phone assigned to quick-dial, so you have to copy them to card(numbers need to be saved on phone to have an image assigned to them). The profile options are also good if you like to use that. Calendar and calculator are good. *** FEATURES ***: The camera isn't bad, although not impressive. Indoors the quality is poor, but in daylight you can have a lot of fun, which is all a camera on phone is for. If you want professional quality, buy a camera.. The biggest 'wow' feature on the phone is being able to assign images to phonebook entries to 'see' who is calling you. I also like how multiple numbers can be assigned to one phonebook entry, and you can dial any of them and the phone recognises incoming calls/messages from any of them as well. *** MISSING ***: You can never have a perfect phone but I'd like to have a radio (why not), dynamic memory for better storage of SMSs. Would like to make my own group names for phonebook. While you can create txt 'templates' I'd prefer for instance to be able to add words to a dictionary. I'm sure I'll be happy enough using this phone for the next year until my next free upgrade.

It's a great phone, lacks Java, it appears bigger then it really is, it's about the same height as most phones if you take in to account the height of the aerial on those phones too. It's getting compared alot to the GX-10 the GX-1 will never be the GX-1O it wasn't meant to be, for someone who is looking for an affordable colour screen mobile with a digital camara and MMS this is the one for you!

I'VE HAD THIS GX1 FOR A WEEK NOW AND KNOW IT INSIDE-OUT. OK FIRST OFF. THE BIG SCREEN, NICE, COLOURS, WHAT YOU SEE IN THE REAL-WORLD. CASE, NICE SILVER, PICTURE QUALITY, VERY BLURRY AND PIXELATED IN ANY PICTURE SIZE FORMAT. SOUNDS-POLY. COST ME 300 AND I FEEL RIPPED RIGHT OFF. DO NOT BUY THIS PHONE IF YOU WANT THE QUALITY YOU THINK YOU WILL GET FROM THE REVIEWS IT'S HAD. IM SELLING MY GX1 FOR 200 SQUID AND UPGRADING TO AN ETCH A SKETCH. SERIOUSLY 200 POUNDS IF YOU WANT MY SHARP GX1 BOXED STILL HAS PROTECTIVE FILM ON SCREEN ITS IN GOOD NICK. [email protected]

when i opted for the sharp gx1 phone, it was mainly for the large colour screen. I hadn't really thought about a camera facility (but this is great fun!) having always been one of "the nokia brigade", as i call them, i was also concerned slightly about changing makes. As it turned out though, i couldn't have made a better choice. This phone is fantastic, easy to use, excellent sound quality, superb colour screen, the list goes on and on. Plus there are plenty of gadgets to play with to! All i could really say is check this baby out if you're after a new upgrade. For £50 (at time of writing),i don't think you'll be disappointed by what you see......

The Sharp GX1 has everything you want on a phone

I brought this phone after reading the first 3 reviews on this forum. However I was very disappointed and took it back for a refund the very next day. The menu navigation was long winded, and the camera was slow to use. There was a line across the camera pics if the subject moved or changed facial expression. Also the infrared was of no use at all. The infrared was only to be used as a modem setup. It was not able to allow transfer of pictures or data from a PC/laptop. I brought the Nokia 7650 instead and am 99% happy, it is a reliable and perfect phone but not the best to look at (regarding size,) until the features draw you in.