Bad Review for the Zaurus

higginsx writes "Sharp's new Linux PDA, the Zaurus SL-5500, gets pretty bad marks from The Wall Street Journal's tech columist Walter Mossberg. He doesn't get much into the OS (other than complaining it wouldn't synch up with his laptop), but concludes that "it failed to do the simple things well. It has a high price, a complicated user interface, and hefty dimensions and weight. Even the cool-looking keyboard turns out to be clumsy to use."" I still really want to try one out since I don't expect I'll ever sync a Zaurus to Outlook.

Comments

Not surprising if you look at Zaurus' past

[ACK!!]

Listen I supported sales reps who used pen based Sharp Zaurus pdas nearly 5 years ago now. They sucked then and I did not get excited when I heard they were using linux because I had this bad sneaking suspicion they would screw up again.

The interface was daunting and the signature capture was clumsy at best. Oddly enough syncing up with the laptop was never the problem before.

Honestly, I was hoping the folks building this thing would grab themselves a clue before fumbling this. Sad. Perhaps with enough people tinkering out there on it (Someone posted earlier that it was good for geek tinkerers) that a better interface can be achieved with a few good hacks.

One can hope.

________________________________________________ __