It might sound a bit unbelievable when you hear that a smartphone having Android OS is available for free, but the same is actually available through Walmart. The phone we are talking about here is the Sharp FX Plus. It is a nice looking phone with some decent specifications. However one may find it a bit slow in its performance. The phone is mostly in black and a bit of metallic grey as well. The display is of 3.2 inches and there is nothing to be astonished about this display because of some drawbacks like very small icons and relatively low picture quality. The speakers present on the back of the phone also do not produce the loudest of sounds.
The Sharp FX runs on the 600 MHz processor. Hence most of the Android phones are better and faster in its performance. The phone uses an older version of the Android i.e. the Android 2.2 version. There are some widgets present in the phone including calendar, time and weather. One can also add customized widgets as well. The phone has the applications of Facebook and Twitter available from the beginning. As said earlier, the phone is slow at times and when compared to some of the latest handsets in the market it is not at all impressive with its speed. In terms of the surfing, the phone supports the AT&T’s 3G network but it is quite poor in its performance here as well since both the download and the upload speeds are comparatively low. The battery backup lasts for around 5 hours.
The QWERTY keypad is not that impressive. The buttons are rigid and small which may make it difficult for any regular typist to use it. However there are four arrow buttons and the punctuations and numbers are available easily which are some positives of the QWERTY keypad.
The back of the phone has a nice rubbery grip and the 3.2 megapixel camera also rests on the back. Pictures taken on the camera are good but they were not of the best quality. Some of them taken in presence of the bright sunlight were not totally clear. There is no flash and hence no pictures can be taken in the dark. The videos are again not that great and there may be a bit of resolution loss. The phone unfortunately does support the mpeg4 video format.
Though it looks quite good and it is available for free, but some of its drawbacks will surely work against the favour of the Sharp FX Plus.