Gadgets and Gizmos

Sharp TM 100 is certainly an unusual looking phone, looking a little like the offspring from a romantic liaison between a Siemens SL55 and a Sony Ericsson T610. It would be uncharitable to call it “ugly” – but the TM 100’s set square straight lines seem rather harsh when compared to the curves of the GX series. In addition, the placement of controls around the main navigation keys looks awkward and unattractive. Sharp have never been terribly good at competing at looks, and the TM 100 is no exception.

The main feature is the excellent 320×240 pixel display in 262,000 colours, which appears to be identical to the one found in the GX30. This is a higher resolution screen than the one found in the Sony Ericsson P900, but it’s much smaller, meaning that the TM 100 boasts the sharpest display in any mobile phone.

The camera is only a VGA-resolution device, but it does have a macro lens, making it similar to the camera found in the GX20 – there’s a digital zoom too. While not the best camera available, it is easily better than many of its competitors in the class, and is certainly a better unit than the one found on the T630. Sharp manufacture the screen and camera themselves.

This is a tri-band GPRS capable phone. There a WAP 2.0 browser built into the TM 100, and it supports standard email protocols. The TM 100 runs Java for games and other applications, supports MMS messaging, polyphonic ringtones and also has a built-in speakerphone. There’s a set of organiser functions built into software, plus an integrated video player.

Internal memory is 2.5Mb which is enough for a few reasonable quality photos. Unlike the GX30/GX32, there’s no removable memory. Connectivity to a PC is through USB cable or infra-red, but not Bluetooth. Physical dimensions are 100×49x22mm, and weight is 105 grams. The Sharp TM 100 is tightly integrated into T-Mobiles t-zones service for additional content, downloads and value added functions.

A close relative of the Sharp V602SH, the V402SH isn’t quite so technically accomplished except for one crucial feature, but is a much prettier handset. By western standards, it’s still pretty advanced, being a 3G phone with a 1.3 megapixel camera bundled with the excellent 320×240 65,000 colour display common to most new Sharp handsets.

Again, the display rotates by 180 degrees, and again theh V402SH takes SD cards for memory expansion. There’s no dog bark translator, but it does indicate the weather which we assume saves you looking outside. Or possibly you’re staying in a capsule hotel. All very nice..

The main trick with the V402SH is the in-built analogue TV tuner – meaning that you can watch TV on the high-resolution display. Unfortunately this tuner is designed for Japanese NTSC standards, so support elsewhere in the world is limited, but we can’t imaging that building PAL support for Europe in a future handset would be too difficult.

There’s a built-in FM tuner for radio reception too. At 98×50x27 mm and 129 grams, both these Sharp handsets are about the same size and weight as the NEC E616 – but these aren’t strictly 3G phones, instead running on Vodafone K.K.’s enhanced 2.5G PDC network.

Sharp V602SH looks a little like the popular Sharp GX20 and Sharp GX30 models, with a slightly bland silver design. However, one of the first things you notice is that the large QVGA (320×240) pixel display swivels 180 degrees. The display works in this way partly to help with taking digital photos, but probably also because it’s quite a cool thing to do.

However, the clever bit with the Sharp V602SH is not the display, but the camera. It features a 2 megapixel autofocus camera and crucially it is the first mobile phone to come with a camera with a 2X optical zoom, which actually gives a better resolution than the standard digital zoom, which merely makes the pictures larger and more grainy. This is certainly a first as far as we know, and is a significant step towards a high-quality all-on-one mobile/PDA/camera device.

This is a 2.5G device offering Vodafone PDC plus dual-band GSM support in a handset measuring 99×55x25 mm and weighing 132 grams – about the standard for a 3G handset. Memory can be expanded using SD memory card. and the V602SH comes with music playback, video support, 3G graphics acceleration for games, karaoke support, a dog bark translator and weather indicator.

The Sharp GX25 is a lightweight Bluetooth-capable handset, exclusive to the Vodafone network, weighing just 90 grams but features Sharp’s highly regarded 240×320 pixel 262,000 colour TFT display.

GX25 should has a VGA-resolution camera with a flash and night mode, like the GX20, and it also features tri-band GSM, GPRS, video capture, Java, polyphonic ringtones, infra-red and USM connectivity, MMS messaging PC synchronisation and pretty much all of the other GX20 features.

The only thing missing is the GX20’s 80×60 pixel external colour display, as the GX25 has a small 72×12 pixel monochrome display.. but the plus point is that this helps bring the GX25’s weight down to 90 grams from 102 grams.

GX25 also has Bluetooth (at the time of press believed to be an unrestricted implementation), an email client and enhanced XHTML web browser.

GX25 measures 92×46x23.5mm and weighs just 90 grams, making it one of the smallest Bluetooth handsets on the market. Talk time is up to 3.5 hours with around 10 days standby. The black and silver casing is a departure from Sharp’s all silver design.

The Sharp 802 is a 1.3 megapixel camera phone with a large 240×320 pixel display in 262,000 colours. Like the 902 and V602SH, the Sharp 802’s display swivels to act as a viewfinder. Sharp 802 also beleaves to be featuring Bluetooth and removable memory on SD cards.

This is a fully featured 3G phone – in addition to the 1.3 megapixel primary display, the 802 also has a secondary VGA resolution camera for video calling, and it can download data or media at up to 384kbps. The large screen should make video playback very enjoyable.

Weighing 141 grams, this is quite large for a clamshell, but about average for a 3G phone. Physical dimensions are around 102×50x26mm.