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.