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InfoSync Reviews Sharp Zaurus
Bill Kendrick writes "infoSync has just posted a
very well-rounded (and long)
review
of the Sharp Zaurus PDA. Get out the kleenex - you'll be
drooling." Gotta say, thats a sharp looking little device.
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The Zaurus in a (not so) near future should feature the new AmigaDE (DE=Digital Enviroment).
/.'ers know something more about this AmigaDE?
Something about it is avaiable at http://www.amiga.com, any of you
Andrea
Please?
Gotta say, thats a sharp looking little device.
Who didn't see that one coming?
great little device... i acquired one just last week, as i wanted to start doing linux dev work, and my ipaq (while a great little device) just doesn't have the linux support i wanted. the keyboard and integrated CF+SD slots make it a lot easier to carry around (being that it's more compact), and i'm finding myself using the ipaq less and less.
if anyone is looking for a pocket linux device, i highly recommend this one...
This wasn't a review, this was a marketing speech about how cool it is. It's an attractive looking PDA, however, they don't tell you much useful information, just gloss over the attractive features, throw some more bullshit at you, and then tell you where to buy it.
Just because a reviewer may like a product doesn't mean that he doesn't have a job to do, to review it in great detail, give the specifications for it, talk about good and bad points, and the like.
Gawyn
Freedom of Speech?
kudos to you for putting something like this out. It really is aimed right now toward the Slashdot geek power user who wants more toys .. you can never have enough I say.
But when I try to go to your web site and I see this bull shit message about how I need to download M$ Exploder to view your web pages, dont you think you have a CONFLICT of interest going here! Your running a product with a Linux kernel, but like hell if your going to get on our web pages if your running a Linux workstation running something like Mozilla or Opera.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
My boss has one on the way! hehe being a PDA developer rocks.
godforbid you try entering from the front door. What the hell was I thinking.
Thanks for the crowbar.
-- Knowing too much can get you killed, but knowing who knows too much can make you rich.
This site's already slashdotted, and there are fewer than 10 comments.:
<psa>Clearly, too many admins of dynamic sites don't know about squid which can act as an 'httpd accelerator', meaning you don't have to go to database for every single request.</psa>
My God, it's Full of Source!
OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
Anyone got a mirror of the article? All's I'm getting is... /usr/local/apache/sites/infosync.no/htdocs/show.ph p on line 7 /usr/local/apache/sites/infosync.no/htdocs/show.ph p on line 7 :-)
Warning: Too many connections in
Warning: MySQL Connection Failed: Too many connections in
Unable to connect!
Guess they're running Apache and mySQL to serve the article off the PDA itself
I think InfoSync is running there webserver off a PDA.
I have been using a zaurus for about a month now..
It is nice to have a machine with robust networking built in as opposed to the M$ pocketpc which is so slow it isn't even funny.. The consumer version should be cleaner than the development version but hey when you can run a webserver from a PDA that is extremely cool.. I can see the future of truly useful PDA's in the enterprise and the future is Linux!!
*narf!*
You'd think that for a site with millions of visitors each day, at least someone would be up to the task of proofreading. First, there should be some kind of punctuation after writes and "infosync, such as:
writes, "infoSync...
or
writes: "infoSync...
Furthermore, thats should be that's because it really means that is. Slashdot may be informal, but grammatical mistakes like that are eyesores.
Cowardly college student
found this site run by a Disney employee.
has some very detailed info.
enjoy!
/* Half alive and half dead too, work is for suckers and the sucker is you. - "Half-life" by Local H*/
The Zaurus has traditionally been a lousy PDA.
I'd be interested to see what they are offering in the newest incarnation that makes it so great.
Last time I checked, it didn't run PalmOS orWinCE.
Whatever happened to Psion?
I'm a 2000 man.
this is a site detailing the installation of Squeak on the Zaurus. Squeak is a descendant of Smalltalk-80.
Cheers,
levine
Gotta say, thats a sharp looking little device.
"Hanging is too good for a man who makes puns; he should be drawn and quoted."
-Fred Allen
LOL
Here's a link to Sharp's FAQ page about the Zaurus SL-5500.
It features a built-in hideaway keyboard (nice!), color screen, and a bunch of other goodies. Available "Early 2002".
I'm a 2000 man.
I know it's offtopic, but:
Gotta say, thats a sharp looking little device.
Yeah, and Sharp makes it. Kinda like Sony stuff being "So nIce". Sharp stuff is... well, sharp!
I'm a 2000 man.
His name was Dave Thomas, and he was 63.
Ah, another Mickey Mouse website about to be slashdotted. ;)
Seriously, Squeak is an interesting implementation of Smalltalk-80, reported to be faithful to the original language, though the GUI seemed to be rather outdated last time I tried it on a pentium box--it doesn't seem to do asynchronous screen updates. It's supported by a team at Disney (no kidding!) including famous Smalltalk guru Alan Kay.
The IDE for Pocketsmalltalk, for Palmos is being ported to use Squeak instead of the commercial Dolphin implementation. Squeak itself doesn't run on palmos, however (as far as I know).
I know it's been mentioned here before, but I thought I'd jump in...
The Sharp Zaurus runs "Squeak", it's an open source programming language, it is a genuine, complete, compact, efficient Smalltalk-80 environment, you can read their licence here.
Check the
ZauChu homepage for more information on programming for the Zaurus.
Not to say that nerds aren't interested in PDAs, but the influx of reviews on each and every one we see seems to a indication that we're bored. (Of course, when you see that 99.999% of all Slashdot articles are rejected, you know that there's no such thing as a "slow news day".) Not to troll or anything, but I'd like to see some more interesting articles on techlaw news and other hard-impacting issues, not Yet Another PDA Review.
Zodiac Survey
I happen to be testing some web counter programs, so I was looking for something random to mirror. Hope it's not too offtopic then to post here my mirror of the pics that are running off said pda webserver:
Here you go
Getting them as we "speak" so please allow time.
Ale
Hey Bill, I like the apps you did for the VR3, but knock off the advertising of well-known tissue brands. The
Otherwise I'd be tempted to say that you can see a great feature on the Zaurus (and other Linux handhelds) in issue 24 of Linux Format, available in the UK on 21 January. Oh wait, ... nevermind :-)
http://fsfeurope.org/
He mentions that the two memory slots would be better with little doors to keep stuff out, and he points out that the front panel buttons don't work unless the panel is all the way up or down. There is information on battery life (and Sharp's claims that it will get better.) Plus, it's not even the final product, so a real full review is not possible. Give them a break.
If I'm not mistaken, the only info about Amiga (or as I perfer to call them, "The Name" Inc) on Sharp is on the Amiga's home page. Funny how Sharp doesn't mention squat about DEad, but "The Name" has been crowing about it.
;^)
One has to wonder, why even bother buying such a product as DEad? Do you really want to run a PDA application on your desktop with PDA resolutions?
Didn't think so.
Damocles
I think this has the chance to be the biggest (* non data center related) Linux success to date. It appears to have everything going for it..I guess the proof will be not only "in the pudding"...but also in availability, cost, and support. I would like to see these things on the shelf in mass quantity very soon. Based on how low on surplus the chains were on certain PDA's this passed holiday season....and still....I would say yesterday would be a good time to market. It seems that the right combination of price and options is what gives these things life in the marketplace. (When HP dropped the price of their "low end" color Pocket PC to $199.00 they were VERY hard to find in the stores. -- people figured that was a sweet spot...Not many people will be willing to pay as much for their PDA's as they have to for a desktop machine.)
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
Imagine a Beowolf Cluster of THESE!!!
I don't know where you live, but "kleenex" has effectively replaced "tissue" here. It's one of those things you just deal with, like "hey, go get me a coke."
Life sucks. Get over it.
-- everyone else on slashdot
This sucks. Apparently, NS-6 (and Mozilla) are not supported by the stupid Sharp web site. And though they list NS-4 as a compatible browser, they only have a link to download IE.
Fucking brilliant.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
WTF? Get a new one already.
Review: Sharp Zaurus SL-5000D
By: Larry Garfield, 07.01.02 10:02
The developer edition of what will become
the most advanced Linux consumer PDA to
date is here; we've taken a closer look at
the heart and the soul of Sharp's new
SL-5000D.
Sharp recently released the developer edition of their new
Linux-based PDA, the Zaurus SL-5000D - and the company, by
positioning it as the Linux answer to Pocket PC and Palm OS
devices, is trying to take the business and "prosumer" markets by
storm. We take a closer look at the SL-5000D, both from the point
of view of a Linux-based system and a PDA.
Bear in mind, the software for
the Zaurus SL-5000D is still in
development, so it is a moving
target for now. Some of the
points mentioned here may
change by the time the
consumer version, the Sharp
Zaurus SL-5500, is released in
the coming months.
The hardware
The Zaurus measures 2.90 x
5.40 x 0.80 in. (74 x 138 x 21
mm), and weighs in at 7.3 oz
(206 g). It's larger than typical
Palm OS devices, but has a
comfortable size compared to
most Pocket PCs. The front
panel below the screen slides
down to reveal the thumb
keyboard, which makes the
device about 2 inches longer
than when it's closed. The front
panel itself has eight hardware
shortcut buttons and one disk-rocker. Calendar, Contact, Home,
Menu, and Email run across the top, Palm-like, with an
On/Off/Cancel button and OK button flanking the silver rocker
below them. The rocker itself is a 4-way disk rocker with another
button in the center. The rocker feels very good in the hand and is
very easy to use. Note that the front panel buttons function only
when the panel is fully extended or fully retracted.
The keyboard is a QWERTY layout in a downward "frown", with a few
modifications. A "FN" (function) button in the lower left acts as a
shift key to the numeric and symbol characters listed above each
character. The backspace key is where the Enter key normally is,
while Enter is relegated to the bottom right corner. The ".", ":", ",",
and ";" characters are also grouped and arranged differently. The
pipe character, standard fare on any Linux-based system, is the
FN-shift from the spacebar, although it is not marked as such. The
keys are small, but we found them easy to use, unless you have
very large fingers.
The top of the device includes a Type II Compact Flash (CF) slot,
headphone/microphone jack, and silo for the included all-plastic
stylus, which we found to be a bit short. An included plastic slug in
the CF slot keeps it free from dirt when not in use. It works, but we
prefer devices that use a small door or cover so that there is no
extra plastic. On the left side of the device, there is a Secure
Digital (SD) slot, which lacks a plastic slug, and an IrDA port.
Why did I lurk so long before registering for a Slashdot account? I could have had a Slashdot ID of less than 100000.
is an open source project working on an open rom for the Zaurus.. includes X, and other standard linux apps.
http://sourceforge.net/projects/zaurus/
-- "Perceptions create reality. By changing your perceptions you change your reality."
Unfortunately, by using Qt/Embedded, the Zaurus partially loses that advantage: while you can muck around with VNC, in reality, the only apps any end user can run on it are Qt/Embedded apps--Qt takes over the screen. On the Zaurus, it's Qt or nothing. Software needs to be ported. Display code needs to be rewritten. Programmers who want to program the Zaurus must spend the time to learn it and use it and build new tools for it. While that isn't hard for an experienced programmer, it still is a lot of wasted time. Note that this is different from Qt on the desktop, where, through the magic of X11, Qt apps live happily side-by-side with other apps.
There is no real reason for this. If you download the Qt/Embedded and Qtopia demo and run it, you'll see that it uses up about 9Mbytes of RAM, considerably more than an X11 server and X11 apps running, say, on the AgendaVR3. And Troll Tech's own description of Qt/Embedded claims that its resource usage ("800k to 3M", depending on configuration) is comparable to that of an X11 server (which takes around 1M in a configuration suitable for handhelds).
What Sharp should do is create an X11 server for the device and recompile their Qt-based apps to use the X11 server. Then, the Sharp will be a standard Linux PDA. The way it is, the Sharp is, for practical purposes, a very slick looking but proprietary device. And that's not what Linux systems are supposed to be about.
... that was benchmarketed [1] on /. a while ago ... (I vaguely recall a lot of noise comparing features vs iPAQ). Are the apps cross-source-comptible? I mean if the claim is that open-source creates innovation then by theory we should see a lot of competitive entries into the PDA market as the cost of entry is so much lower (create a compiler-farm and voila instant apps).
LL
[1] Some people are complaining about acronyms/jargon so I'll just clarify for newcomers. Benchmarks are side-by-side comparisons of features/functions/performance using quantifiable tests/numbers. Benchmarketing is the selective choice of a subset for simplistic bragging rights (e.g. spec-rating) which can be taken to extremes by benchcrafting (google on Mindcraft and Linux) which is an artificial benchmark designed to distort public opinion.
The next generation of PDAs needs to be have wireless and digital phone capabilities. Remeber the thread about the Treo awhile back? While it might be fun to run apache on my PDA it isnt really necessary. My prediction --> won't sell to anyone but slashdotters
I like traffic lights
he was 69. and i think we all know why he died...but he was a nice guy.
-------- -praktike
Some of you might already have heard of it, but there is a Linux-based PDA which has just been released in Korea. It's called 'Yopy' and is based on Intel StrongARM and 'X WINDOW SYSTEM,' which means it should provide more compatibility to established Linux software base.
Yopy information here
For those who want to stick to Zaurus, a full-fledged office suite is being developed by Hancom targeted for Zaurus platform(I've been to a demo session last December). Quick summaries are on their website.
Slashdot me with L$s!
Now I wonder how much trouble it will be to compile some of the GameBoy emulators out there :)
Mpeg-4?? Fine, good, great, but does that mean it will play all of the existing flics in divx format out there?
This is a sweet little machine. I really like it. That's about all I have to say, except that I posted this message from my zaurus with a compactflash nic. I feel so special.
ZeoSync goes down in history as the fastest uncovered hoax: The oracle knows all, saves everything.
--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
I would love to get one of these but can't seem to find any information of how much they are (will be) or who sells (will sell) them I've tried Sharp Australia but they have never heard of them!
Hey smartass, you have to realize that Qt is a lot more than xlib and therefore will result in huge savings on application front.
I can get HTML browser going in couple thousands lines of code using Qt while it would take tens of thousands trying to utilize xlib.
Huh? With X11, if you want to use Qt, you can use Qt. If you want tiny apps, you can use FLTK. If you want other toolkits, you can use them. With Qt/Embedded, you are stuck with Qt. No choice.
I can't find the address right now, but someone is porting an X server to run under Qtopia.
If anyone had bothered to read Troll's FAQ on the subject, the "memory" footprint of the system also includes the entire size of the framebuffer memory. A high-res color screen is going to have a fairly large framebuffer, regardless of it being on a PDA or not.
But instead we just get whining that "real programmers" shouldn't use QT for whatever reason.
The copper bosses killed you, Joe. 'I never died', said he.