Review Of The Sharp Zaurus 5000D

Tim_F writes: "Palmstation has a nice review of the recently available development release of the Sharp Zaurus 5000D. This device looks sweet, with QT Embedded, and Lineo Embeddix. It also features a full JVM based on JDK 1.1.8." Any readers out there who have managed to try one of these out as well?

Comments

It's nice

[1010011010]

I have three of them for a project at work. We plan to used them, or a device like them, to aid in scoring oral exams -- pace the exam, prompt the questions, collect the scores for each section, etc.

It has a number of nice features for this application:

• Screen cover (unlike the iPaq)
  
• $399 price includes two expansion slots ($499 iPaq has no slots)
  
• Light (50% lighter than iPaq with $150 add-on expansion sleeve)
• comes with linux on it (I don't have to reprogram 150 or so of these things)
  
• works with inexpensive CF 802.11b cards, like the Linksys model.
  
• can be powered/charged from AC without being in the cradle
  
• although we don't plan to use it for the exams, the keyboard is nice
  
• full networking support, including dhcp and multicast.
  
• removable/replaceable battery. I have an iPaq that will no longer hold a charge, and I cannot replace the battery.
  

Adding a single PCMCIA slot and wireless card to an iPaq increases the cost to $850/unit and yields a device with no free slots, but 802.11b networking.

Adding a wireless card to this Zaurus yields a device with networking and one free slot (an SD slot) for $500. Plus, its noticeable smaller and lighter, and much easier to hold for a long time. Only problem so far: the 802.11b card blocks the stylus slot.

Now we just need apps! apps! apps! so that Sharp will ship this thing retail and sell them at best buy. It includes all the usual stuff - address book, calendar, todo list, email (pop/smtp), etc. Also includes games, like asteroids (everyone in my office found the asteroids game almost immediately). It just needs "fit and finish."

Sync over 802.11b would be a nice trick. Currently it uses Intellisync over USB, using 192.168.1.200 and 192.168.1.201 as the unit and host addresses for its private network. It would seem that a major corporate nice-thing would be to have a sync server for the Zaurus, so that employees could just walk near an access point and get things synced.

Anyway, it's easily the nicest PDA I've seen, and held.

Re:JDK 1.1.8?

[Yokaze]

Just a guess.
The download size of the file

jre-1_1_8_008-win.exe = 2,764,736 bytes.

j2re-1_4_0-beta3-win.exe = 9,156,008 bytes.

j2re-1_4_0-beta3-linux-i386.bin = 21,550,344 bytes.

This could be of some concern for a PDA.

Of course, all those numbers apply only for x86 CPUs an were not optimised for size.

Lastly, the VM is based on JDK 1.1.8, which is a (industry) standard, and not necessarily a JRE.
In other words, the VM may be quite new.

Now the question, why did they use a full fledged Java-enviroment instead of the Java 2, Micro Edition? Probably, because the device can handle it.

Apps?

[fm6]

Now we just need apps! apps! apps!

Well, there will certainly be apps, given the established community of Java programmers and the rising community of Qt programmers. But Java 1.1.8? Java 2 has been out for nearly 2 years, and Sun plans to end-of-life the 1.1 stream next year. I suspect that Sharp considers Java to be a stopgap technology, to be used only until the Qt software base reaches critical mass.

Certain folks in Cupertino can't be happy about this. Java doesn't seem to be winning much acceptance in hand-held application development. Given the failure of Java in other markets, the technology seems to be limited to writing business logic for app servers and hacking out specialized XML editors and filters.

I have one of these...

[bc90021]

And I've been using it for half a week now. Some things to note:

• The handwriting recognition isn't that bad. It requires you to train the device for certain characters if you want your own handwriting to work, but that doesn't take much time.
• IBM MicroDrives work with no problem. I have a 340MB version, and several other Zaurus owners have reported the 1GB version working. (Though they drain the battery quickly.)
• There are already tons of programs that have been ported. SSH, Telnet, Seminole Web Server, Jikes, Python, BitchX, Konqueror, NMap, and Perl to name just a few.
• The keyboard is really easy (and actually kinda fun) to use!
• The synching for Windows could use a little work, but it is a developer's model. Someone has already patched the 2.4.x kernels to allow USB networking over Linux in order to connect it to a Linux box, so it is now Linux friendly. :)
• The "Word Game" that comes with it (like Scrabble) has been very addicting!
• It is easily 80% of the size of a typical WinCE handheld, and includes two expansion slots (one CF and one SD) by default.

Overall, it's a very neat little device. Since it is only a developer's version, it still has its few kinks to work out. But I won't be buying another PDA for a good long time.

Zauru

[mduckworth]

Hey, My roomate has the japanese equivalent, the Zaurus MI-E1 which has been out in japan for over a year now. He was over there last winter. He has all sorts of attachments for it including the Compact flash digital camera. This device is pretty amazing, the japanese one has an SH processor and runs ZaurusOS but it's very very sweet. Full screen mpeg4 video is not a problem for it. It's very fast, and this american one should be faster and a lot more amazing. These things put Ipaq's to shame, trust me ;)