Review: Sharp 903 (5 Stars)

On the 17th of September 2004, I blogged this . . .

"If there's one area of technology that's really on the move right now its Mobile Phone Photography. I read recently that Qualcomm (great company) are to introduce a 6 megapixel chip-set next year, 6 MEGA PIXELS!!! http://www.mobilemag.com/content/100/340/C2854/That's just crazy, well not crazy, but almost completely unexpected on a mobile phone. Of course there is no way that a 6 megapixel phone camera is going to produce the same results as a 6 megapixel digital SLR, but still the results should easily surpass your average digital camera. Makes me wonder where is this all going to end. At what point will your average 'mobile phone Joe' decide that they're happy with the picture resolution. Here's my prediction for the next 2 years. Average mobile phone camera resolution will reach around the 4 megapixel mark at the very end of next year, then in 2006 we will see a real push for much better video (and sound) recording. It will be interesting to see what people decide to do with all these photos and videos.
Put them on their blogs I suspect! http://moblog.co.uk/"

Then on the 23rd of May 2005, this . . .

"My Nokia 6630 is now my only still camera. Yeah yeah it’s 1.3MP and the lens is tiny but you know what? I don’t really care. Photoshop gives me the power to fix some of the problems and circumvent many of the others. The picture above is just as good as any I've taken with the Nikon 5MP camera. I always have my phone with me, hence I always have my camera with me. Phones of 2006 will surely complete the transition. Will the iPod be the next device to be consumed by the phone? It's looks as if T.V. will be by the end of this year!"

Well it's the very end of 2005 and I now have a new Sharp 903 (Vodafone) phone. It's has all the features that you might expect of a good digital camera at a resolution of 3.2 mega pixels, that's just 800,000 pixels short of my predicted 4 million. As a phone the Sharp is fast and smooth, both in terms of the physical handling and the user interface. As a camera, so far it has proved to be extraordinarily capable, even in low light situations. Opening the screen and flipping it around before flipping it back against the body transforms it in perfectly usable camera. The screen is 320x240 and very bright, that's a better screen then most digital cameras. I've yet to test the photo quality in anger but the scenes that I have tried so far have been reproduced almost perfectly. I'm working on a new website at the moment, the minute I've finished it I will include some full res sample pictures from the Sharp 903.

It would be very hard not to love this phone, perhaps the size might put small handed people off, but for most this might just be all the phone and handy camera you need.