Review: Sharp FX
Camera
The FX has a 2 megapixel camera. It launches quickly once the dedicated camera key is pressed. It has a square box that floats in the center of the viewfinder to help you frame your shot, but the FX does not have autofocus. The options are limited. Users can adjust white balance, resolution, picture quality, image effects (sepia, B&W, etc), and add frames. That's about it. The FX will zoom, but only if the resolution is set to lower than the full 2 megapixels.
Using the FX outdoors as a camera is nearly impossible due to the screen's lack of visibility. Still, I was able to compose some shots and fire them off. The shutter responds surprisingly fast, in less than a second. The FX then processes the image and presents users with the usual send/trash/return-to-camera options. I hate that you have to press the little return-to-camera button to take another shot. On many other phones, you can press the shutter button again to skip the review screen, or just wait a second or two for it to go back automatically.
The sharing options are limited to sending via MMS or uploading it to AT&T's Online Locker, which costs money. Why no email or Facebook option?
Gallery
The FX gallery app offers no advanced features of any kind. It presents images in two separate libraries: Images stored on the SD card, and images stored on the phone's internal memory. Each lists images in a single column with miniature thumbnails rather than in a grid. Pressing any image will open it in the full screen. When the FX is closed, images automatically display in portrait mode, with thick black bars above and below each image. If you want to view pictures in landscape mode, you have to either open the phone or press a software button to manually rotate the slide show app. That's just awkward and completely unintuitive.
As far as editing goes, the FX has nothing. Users can delete, send, or rename picture files. That's about it. You can zoom in while looking at images, but you cannot crop them nor rotate them. The FX has one of the more limited camera and gallery apps I've seen in recent memory.
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Sharp FX
