Zaurus 5600 Announced

numatrix writes "Sharp just announced the release of the SL-5600 Zaurus today, the followup to the SL-5500 linux pda. Features include an xscale 400mhz processor, 96mb total flash, higher capacity battery, 2.4.18 kernel, built in speaker and mic, and all of the best bits of goodness from the 5500. Infosync has an article as well."

Comments

400mhz processor, 96mb?

[Anonymous Coward]

millihertz? millibit? Gee, these are specs for the brain of a motorized barbie, not a pda!

Re:400mhz processor, 96mb?

[infolib]

From the Sharp announcement:
Noting the importance of battery life, the Zaurus SL-5600 includes a 1700 mAh high capacity battery, the largest standard rechargeable battery capacity currently on the market.

Perhaps they meant "Mega" here as well?

Re:400mhz processor, 96mb?

[JonTurner]

>>includes a 1700 mAh high capacity battery
>Perhaps they meant "Mega" here as well?
We're talking about a PDA, not a portable Fermi proton-antiproton collider. It's "milli-amp hour," I'm certain. ;)

Re:400mhz processor, 96mb?

[Malc]

I'm pretty sure they're right. A few years ago, I had to search around a bit for new rechargeable AA batteries for my Siemens Gigaset phone. I got 1600mAh Ni-MH, which have turned out to be orders of magnitude better than the original Ni-Cads.

My Dell Inspiron 7500 laptop has a 5400mAh Li-Ion battery - does that help put it in to perspective?

Re:400mhz processor, 96mb?

[ZigMonty]

400/1000 = 0.4 Hz = 2.5 seconds

Wow! 2.5 seconds a cycle! Can it play mp3s?

Re:400mhz processor, 96mb?

[Citizen of Earth]

the Zaurus SL-5600 includes a 1700 mAh high capacity battery

Perhaps they meant "Mega" here as well?

I think you'd need a special license for tactical thermonuclear testing.

Re:400mhz processor, 96mb?

[gweihir]

Sounds like "Attack of the SI-challenged....".

At least in this area even the US is metric.

64 meg flash, 32mb RAM

[perlow]

correction guys, its 64MB flash, 32MB RAM.

Re:64 meg flash, 32mb RAM

[dalutong]

Actually.. it is pretty much how much you want. I have the zaurus as well. When I upgraded my software to www.openzaurus.org and opie, i had the choice of how to distribute my memory. I chose to go 40 MB of RAM and 24 MB of ROM. I could have had 16MB of RAM and 48 MB of ROM though. (I wish I had -- I would like more internal storage... but i guess programs need RAM to run :))

So. it is 96 MB, in (almost) whatever configuration you want

Re:64 meg flash, 32mb RAM

[MonMotha]

That absolutely cannot be true unless it's all RAM. If it were all RAM, you'd have to reload the OS every time you turned off the little power switch (including the bootloader, which would have to be done through some exotic means), so this is unlikely.

RAM and Flash are totally different things. For one, RAM is volitile and will lose it's state when power is removed; flash will not. You cannot somehow "redistribute" between them since they're physically separate and radically different chips.

However, if you're installing apps and such to your ram (a common thing to do), you may make a distinction between the ramdisk area (often implemented using Linux's tmpfs, which actually grows and shrinks dynamically up to a hard set limit at mount time) and system RAM, the area that programs run in.

Re:64 meg flash, 32mb RAM

[kennyj449]

Actually, it's 16M Flash and 64M RAM. Normally, the default Sharp rom loads the Flash into RAM on a 32-meg ramdisk, and applications are installed onto this ramdisk. Alternatively, applications can be installed onto other media, namely an SD or CF card. The Flash memory is untouched outside of upgrades.

OpenZaurus, however, which is a Debian-based community-produced distribution that's mostly binary-compatible, boots directly from flash using the JFFS2 driver which makes it writable. This way, reboots won't screw over your data. From there, you have a choice of memory configurations such as 32M ramdisk and 32M RAM, where you'd install most new applications to the ramdisk. There are others, like 16/48 and 0/64, which requires that you are either very frugal with the Flash memory usage or you have a card slipped in somewhere.

Personally, I use the 0/64 configuration and I have a 128M SD card which all my software and application data goes onto, and a 64M CF card that does document transfers and storage. I plan to get a Microdrive CF card so I can go the extra mile and get a few hours of music on the thing.

The new Zaurus actually has only 32M of RAM, and 64M of "protected Flash" whatever the fsck that is. Flash is nice and fast for storage compared to the alternatives, but I'd miss the RAM. Personally, I think that this cripples the new Z somewhat. I don't know how the 206mhz ARM on the 5500 compares to the 400mhz XScale on the 5600, though (I doubt the X-scale is twice as fast.) I won't miss not having built-in speaker and mic (I can always get a much better headset if I wanted that functionality, or build a much better one to clip on; and my ear-clip headphones that I got for it are quite badass.)

I am kinda pissed that Sharp still hasn't updated the kernel for the old model.. It still runs 2.4.6! The OpenZaurus distribution is working on bringing over a recent reversion, and are recieving some help with the proprietary modules like the SD driver, but personally I think Sharp should have addressed the kernel obsolescence issue some time ago.

lots of pretty pictures

[perlow]

http://www.zauruszone.com/files/sl5600pics.zip

Re:lots of pretty pictures

[numatrix]

Same photos in a more convienant format.

cool

[wrax]

these look cool, and from the specs it looks like it beats the ipaq from hp. i wonder what the price is like for the zarus.

Re:Cool

[Sergeant Beavis]

I'm in the same boat, I bought the 5500 just a couple of months ago. At least I only paid $330 for it. Still, it's one bad ass little mofo.

Re:Cool

[Felix The Cat]

I'm in the same boat. I got my 5500 a week ago for an anniversary present. Something tells me, though, that my wife would not appreciate me trading it in for a 5600.

Meow

Re:cool

[moonbender]

500 to 600 bucks, estimates (!) the infoSync article linked to in the story.

Re:Does it run Linux?

[numatrix]

I had hoped this was sarcastic, but maybe not. Please let me be wrong and this be a waste of typing.

"2.4.18 kernel". Nope, definitely doesn't run linux, it's a 2.4.18 GNU/Hurd kernel... <sigh>

Yes, it runs linux.

Re:Does it run Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

>> Does it run Linux? That would be awesome!

No, when the story mentioned "2.4.18 kernel" they meant something entirely different...

Re:But will it run

[Anonymous MadCoe]

No it runs Windows CE 2.4.18.... Maybe you should _read_ the article before posting.

Press releases

[IceFox]

http://www.infosync.no/news/2002/n/2593.html
http://www.sharpusa.com/products/ModelLanding/0,10 58,1016,00.html
http://www.sharpusa.com/products/FunctionPressRele aseSingle/0,1080,304-32,00.html

14MB of Photos: http://www.zauruszone.com/files/sl5600pics.zip

Pretty much:
Linux 2.4.18
64MB of Flash
32 RAM
1700 Battery
Speaker and Mic added
Will be out around end of december and early January
Probaly we have the same price as the 5500 when it came out (~$500)
The mini laptop that came out that everyone saw also was anounced today, but that is for Sharp Japan.

Benjamin Meyer

Re:Press releases

[djradon]

I just got back from returning my SL-5500 at J&R Music World, and their computer had the price for the 5600 as $549.99. The guys behind the counter told me "two weeks", but that's probably not accurate, and they had 30 on order.

Where's that old Lena Lovich album?

[Anomalous Cowbird]

I have this sudden urge to play "New Toy" really loud.

Texte from infoSync

[denisbergeron]

Since everything is /.ed this is the text I have in my cache !

Next generation Zauruses announced
By: Larry Garfield, Tuesday, 12.11.02 13:52 GMT

Is it Zauruses or Zaurii? Either way, Sharp has officially announced two new models, one for the US and Japan and one for just the Japanese market. Guess who has exclusive pictures?

Sharp has released details on their upcoming next generation Zaurus Linux-based handhelds. One model will be marketed in the US as the Zaurus SL-5600 and in Japan as the Zaurus B500, while the other, the Zaurus C300, will be available exclusively in Japan for now.

On the outside, the SL-5600 is the same as the Sl-5500. But it's what's inside that counts.
The SL-5600 will use the same general form factor as the current SL-5500 model. However, it will run on a 400 MHz Intel XScale PXA-250 CPU. Rather than using a split-RAM architecture like the Sl-5500 and Pocket PCs do, the SL-5600 will have 32 MB of RAM that is dedicated to just active memory. For user storage, it will include 64 MB of NAND Flash ROM for both the OS and user applications, compressed for increased capacity. The user will have at least 32 MB of uncompressed space available to install additional programs. How much actual space the user will have available will vary depending on the files installed, as different files compress better than others. The writeable ROM also means that the SL-5600 won't suffer from the double-symlink problem of the SL-5500, making it easier to install programs to SD or CF cards. It also means that user data cannot be lost even in the case of complete battery loss.

The SL-5600 includes sliding keyboard of the SL-5500. It also has a built-in microphone and polyphonic speaker. The screen is the same 16-bit TFT QVGA 240x320 display as the previous model. One of the main complaints about the SL-5500 was its battery life, so Sharp has responded by including a 1700 ma Lithium-Ion removable/rechargable battery, the largest of any handheld to date, that causes a slight hump in back. As with the Sl-5500, it supports both Compact Flash and Secure Digital cards, but does not yet support SDIO due to licensing problems with the closed-source SD drivers.

The more ambitious Zaurus C300 will only be available in Japan. (Ill: MobileNews)
On the software side, the SL-5600 runs an updated version of the Lineo Embeddix GNU/Linux distribution used on the rest of the recent Zaurus line. The new version runs version 2.4.18 of the Linux kernel, and supports both TCP/IP networking and standard USB I/O for synchronization. (The SL-5500 used a TCP/IP-over-USB setup for synchronization that was sometimes unstable.) It comes packaged with Hancom Office as well as Opera 6 for web browsing. The browser will support both Flash and Adobe Acrobat files via plugins. It also includes the Jeode Java Virtual Machine, which will tie into Opera for web pages that support the PersonalJava specification. The Qtopia UI environment also includes several enhancements already present in the Japanese-only Zaurus SL-A300.

The SL-5600 will also be marketed in Japan under the name SL-B500, and have extra Japanese language support.

Sharp's other new model is the SL-C300, previewed recently at CEATAC. The C300 has the same internal hardware and software as the SL-5600, but is slightly larger in each direction The device opens width-wise to reveal a landscape-mode full-VGA 640x480 color display, the same size as the display on the SL-5600, and a mini-sized QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard has larger, finger-friendly keys and separate numeric and alphabetic keys, as wel as traditional directional buttons. It has a smaller, 950 ma battery, as Sharp expects it to be used more as a laptop alternative than a handheld. Unfortunately, the C300 is not slated for release outside of Japan.

The SL-5600, SL-B500, and SL-C300 will be avaiable Quarter 1 of 2003. Prices have not been set, but the SL-5600 is expected to retail in the $500-$600 range.

Until then, high-resolution pictures of the Zaurus SL-5600 are available on the following pages.

Re:Does it run Linux?

[ghotiboy]

Of course it does, silly. The best part is bringing up a terminal and typing 'ls' for your geek friends. Or 'ifconfig', 'lsmod', or 'uname -a'.

What happended to YOPY ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where is that YOPY ?

performance

[iamthemoog]

Are there any tweaks/optimizations in the kernel for the xscale processor? It appears pocketpc 2002 from microsoft can't take advantage of the extra power; here's hoping linux can....

Re:performance

[js7a]

The only important difference is that the 400 MHz CPU is coupled to a 100 MHz memory bus, instead of the previous 206/103 MHz. So all the assumptions about wait states change. Lots of loops with such assumptions get a lot slower when they are run on the 'faster' platform.

Xscale also has a bunch of hardware support for playing mpeg video, but I don't understand the details.

Re:performance

[g4dget]

As I understand it, the reason why Xscale doesn't perform as well on code not compiled for it is that some instructions have been eliminated and are now emulated, including one instruction commonly used during procedure call. If code is compiled using those instructions, it will be pretty slow. Since Linux applications come in source form, I suspect it just takes gcc support and a simple recompile.

Re:performance

[MonMotha]

There has been some buzz regarding this recently from the handhelds.org crew as they port Linux to the H39xx series iPAQ. From what I gather, PocketPC is StrongARM optimized (and since you don't have the source, there's not much you can do about that).

The X-Scale (armv5) is completely backwards compatible with the StrongARM (armv4), but some instructions are faster than others. I believe the conclusion was that compiler optimizing for xscale would be beneficial to both platforms as the armv4 should run at about the same speed while the armv5 runs faster than before.

Note however that part of the reason you don't see huge performance increases is that (at least on the early xscales, possibly current ones too) the write-back cache is disabled due to some flaw in the chip. Oops :)

Re:performance

[js7a]

the write-back cache is disabled due to some flaw in the chip. Oops

I wonder what went wrong with the write-back cache, other than being 1/256th the reasonable size for a general purpose computer with 32 MB RAM?!?

This makes me sad

[Surye]

xscale 400mhz processor

*cries* First my friend's video card is better then my P200, and now this?

Re:This makes me sad

[Jaxnoth]

Extremely so, since there is a bug that make it run at only around 200 Mhz instead of the 400 it is rated at. It current tests, it is slightly slower that the 5500.

Re:This makes me sad

[evil_one]

What are you crying about? I have a Palm m125 and a Mac IIsi - guess which one is faster and has more ram...
Mind you, this Zaurus puts my company computer to shame... a K6 350...

Re:This makes me sad

[Wayfarer]

First my friend's video card is better then my P200, and now this?

Don't feel too bad; consider the following info, posted to the tkc mailing list by Shawn Gordon, president of theKompany.com:

Also the XScale chips are flawed, Intel confirmed this to me personally in conversations regarding testing some of our software, for all intents and purposes they are running at about half speed because of the flaw, so this chip is really slower than the 206Mhz StrongARM in the current device.

Re:This makes me sad

[Locutus]

So did Intel put a transistor or two into the Xscale and run it at 2x clock so they can put a 400MHz label on the part?

I found it very interesting when they came out with the P4. They couldn't product much over 750MHz in the P3 and then all of a sudden they have 1.5GHz chips that benched around as fast as the 750MHz P3's. Like Microsoft has used moving API's to keep ahead of every one else, Intel seem to be using moving instruction sets to keep Intel-inside ahead of AMD-inside...

I was hoping that the Z on XScale would be different than WinCE on XScale. Never heard it was a hardware problem.

I'd mod ya if I could.

LoB

Re:This makes me sad

[RevAaron]

No, this isn't some deliberate scam on the part of Intel.

The XScale is new design, seperate from the StrongARM. They're in the same archetecture family, but the XScale is a new chip, not just a renamed and reclocked SA-1100.

Part of this new design is increased power efficiency. The 400 MHz XScale achieves about the same MIPS, the same performance as a 206 MHz StrongARM, but using a lot less power. The XScale is about better MIPS per watt. I don't know off the top of my head what the ratios are, but a PDA based on the XScale at 400 MHz gets a lot better battery life than a PDA based on a 206 MHz StrongARM, at least theoretically, and assuming the same battery and non-cpu power consumers.

It's not about getting a higher sounding number, it's just a new design. Not all CPUs have the same performance/megahertz ratio- for example, the PowerPC has a pretty high performance/MHz ratio and the XScale a very low performance/MHz ratio, with the Athlon somewhere in between.

Re:This makes me sad

[Citizen of Earth]

So did Intel put a transistor or two into the Xscale and run it at 2x clock so they can put a 400MHz label on the part? ... They couldn't product much over 750MHz in the P3 and then all of a sudden they have 1.5GHz chips that benched around as fast as the 750MHz P3's.

Yep, they did the 2x clock divider trick with the P4; they were just very crafty about hiding it! Then AMD did the same trick with their marketing.

correction to infosync article

[perlow]

Its the C700, not the C300 for the japanese mini-laptop.

Optimizations?

[Anonymous Coward]

The PocketPC Windows runs relatively slowly on the xScale because it's not tweaked for the ARM version it uses; any ideas if the Zaurus' Linux is properly optimized?

Re:Optimizations?

[Jaxnoth]

I believe the main problem is that there is a bug in the 400 mhz xScale processor. As a result, it runs at about half speed.

Re:Optimizations?

[melonman]

Do you have a source for this theory?

Re:Optimizations?

[zapfie]

You mean we can't just pull assumptions and hearsay out of our ass and post it as fact? Dammit..

Re:Optimizations?

[melonman]

Sure you can, it's a free world, it's just that some of us are waiting for a 400MHz XScale RISC OS machine to replace the existing 206MHz StrongARM models. If the new one is going to be slower, I'll stop saving my beer money...

Re:If Linux is so free...

[sydney094]

A $99 Palm can't play full motion video.

That's great but...

[SablKnight]

when is the C300 going to be released in the US? The original Zaurus is nice (don't have one, but played with one in stores) but the keyboard is difficult at best when you've got giant gorilla hands like I do. I don't expect the C300 to be a lot better, but it should be an improvement. Besides, the mini-laptop design looks pretty cool.

-SablKnight

Description from Sharp

[denisbergeron]

Since everything is /.ed voici la description from http://www.sharpusa.com/products/ModelLanding/0,10 58,1016,00.html

SL-5600 | Handhelds

Powerful, Flexible, Mobile.
The Sharp Zaurus SL-5600 combines state-of-the-art Sharp technology and Sharp innovation to deliver a unique and compelling PDA solution. The Sharp Zaurus SL-5600 offers everything from mobile communications to mobile multimedia; keyboard integration and dual expansion delivering one of the most versatile and flexible PDA solutions on the market today.

To join our mailing list Click here.

Zaurus developers please Click here.

Features
Wireless Communications
With optional Compact Flash(TM) modems and Sharp Mobile Services you can have wireless connectivity virtually anytime, anywhere.+
Integrated Keyboard and Sliding Cover
Sharp's clever integrated keyboard design allows easy data input without sacrificing space. Edit text or e-mail effortlessly with a standard QWERTY keyboard.
Rechargeable, Replaceable Long Life Battery
With its replaceable 1700mAH Li-ION battery, larger than any other battery in a smart handheld device, the Zaurus provides extra long battery life so you can be mobile longer.
CompactFlash(TM) and SD/MMC Expansion Slots
Sharp combines the best of both worlds by offering two expansion slots. Two slots allow you to add two peripherals simultaneously such as a CompactFlash(TM) modem card and SD memory card. This seamless design makes upgrading easy and simple
Mobile Multimedia
Sharp's color LCD technology and high powered processor deliver top quality multimedia for all corporate and personal needs. The SL-5600 has a 3.5" 65,536 Color Reflective TFT Front-Lit Screen with 240 x 320 resolution for outstanding graphics and clarity, indoors or out.
Speaker & Microphone with a Stereo Headphone Jack
Listen to your favorite music or movie clips anytime, anywhere.
Stylus and Touch Screen
In addition to the SL-5600 built-in QWERTY keyboard, the stylus and touch screen allows you to navigate through applications with ease.
Customizable One-Touch Access
Instantly view calendar, address book, menu and e-mail with just one press of a button. Or customize the button settings to suit your personal needs.
Linux / Java Based Platform
Linux® and Java(TM) based architecture provides a powerful and open operating environment - allowing many Linux and Java developers to write applications for the SL-5600, and integrated into various enterprise environments.

Specifications
CPU Intel® 400MHz XScale(TM) processor1
Platform Linux2 based embedded OS (Embedix3) QT Palmtop Environment, Personal Java4
Display Reflective TFT LCD with Front Light (touch sensitive panel supported), 3.5" with 240x320 pixel, 65,536 colors.
Memory 96MB Total
32MB SDRAM
64MB Protected Flash - secure memory for storing PIM info and applications.
Input Device Touch Panel, QWERTY keyboard with a sliding cover
Card Slot 1 compact Flash Card5 slot, 1 SD/MMC card slot (no copyright protection feature)
I/O Port Serial/USB (via docking station port, IR port)
Sound Stereo headphone jack included, mic and mono speaker included.
+For wireless communications, additional accessories and an available service plan are required. Wirelss services is subject to network availability.
1 XScale is a registered trademark of Intel Corp.
2Linux is a registered trademark owned by Linus Torvalds
3Embedix is a trademark of Lineo, Inc.
5CompactFlash is a trademark of SanDisk corporation

Product specifications and design subject to change without notice.

© 2002 Sharp Electronics Corp.

Battery life ?

[mirko]

I own an SL_5500 which gives me satisfaction, except when it comes to its batetry life : 2 hours with full backlight, maybe 3 with half...
Will Sharp finally sell an extra-capacity battery for the Z ?
I think this'd be much more appreciable than a puny 96MB (I can't fill its 64, anyway) on a 400MHz Xscale.

Re:Battery life ?

[Cyn]

Actually that's one of the things they did with the new Zaurus, increase the battery life.

Not being able to fill its 64 seems strange, are you using it or just shining it once a day and putting it back in its cradle, as you smile at it's beauty...

Re:Battery life ?

[mirko]

Not being able to fill its 64 seems strange

Well in my cas I don't quite multitask, so, by not opening tons of apps at once, I just have enough room for whatever I do, including Java programming or (Hancom)Word processing...
Eventually gaming too : I just love the tkcMahJongg :-)

Re:Battery life ?

[Lawrence_Bird]

This is why all the high end PDA's are a waste of time and money. Who wants to be running to the store for batteries every day or having to remember to recharge twice a day, or face the consequences?

Re:Battery life ?

[zsazsa]

The new SL-5600 will come with a 1700mAh battery. Unfortunately it looks like it's a lot bigger than the SL-5500's 950mAh battery. :(

Re:Battery life ?

[RevAaron]

The better battery life is thanks to both the bigger and better battery as well as the XScale processor, which has a higher MIPS/watt ratio.

Re:Battery life ?

[RevAaron]

Not all high-end PDAs have shitty battery life like the Zaurus and iPAQ.

While it's still 5 years old, the Newton 2100, with it's 480x320 screen and 162 MHz CPU can still be considered high-end. The Newton 2100 gets a good 2-5 weeks of battery life on a fresh charge. In real usage, that's perhaps 24 hours of straight usage?

I tried converting from the Newton to the iPAQ, under both PocketPC and Linux, using the black and white iPAQ 3150 rather than the one of the color models. The 3150 got a good 10-12 hours of battery life, perhaps more.

Although in a different league, a Jornada 720 I was using for a while got 8 hours on a charge.

Getting decent battery life seems largely contingent on PDAs with screens that don't suck juice like there's no tommorow. As such, I've stuck with PDAs with greyscale screens, until color screens are practical for PDAs.

When you say "face the consequences," what do you mean? That if the battery runs out, the contents of the RAM is gone? I've noticed this too, and find it rather disgusting myself. On both the Newton and Jornada 720, there is a backup battery, allowing one to not have the unit plugged in or the battery charged for at least a few months with no loss of data. Yet another reason most PDAs are still just toys as far as I'm concerned...

Re:Battery life ?

[MonMotha]

Twice a day? I put my iPAQ on the charger every night (pretty easy to do, just put it on the cradle before you go to bed) and it's fully charged in the morning.

I can easily get an entire day's worth of normal use (playing games like solitare for about 30min, doing normal work for a total of about 30min-1hr, suspended the rest of the time) out of it.

Running full tilt in full power mode, with backlight on but minimal, I can get 1.5-3hr out of it with no external battery. There are also sleeves that have an extra battery built in if you need more joice (and you get a PCMCIA slot or two, or a CF slot or two as a bonus :)

Re:Battery life ?

[dan the person]

The zaurus has a backup battery also.

It's keeps the ram chips warm until you can recharge the main battery. I don't think the backup lasts for months though...

Re:Battery life ?

[RevAaron]

If not months, how long would you guess? Are you sure it's a battery, rather than a capacitor- which many PalmOS units have. In those, you have to replace your batteries within a few seconds or have your RAM all wiped.

Another great solution, but more costly, is the all flash RAM route. The Newton 2x00 did this as well as the Caseo BE-300 WinCE PDA.

Re:If Linux is so free...

[finkployd]

The hardware.

That is like saying "if linux is so free, why does a quad xeon machine running linux cost more than a 386 running linux?"

There simply IS no comparable palm model, however a comparison with the iPaq would be fair....

Finkployd

Re:Does it run Linux?

[ichimunki]

Way to read the article! Hell, even the posting above says "Linux" right in there. And yes, the Zaurus runs not only Linux, but offers easy ways to flash out the supplied "distro" and flash in your own. Debian has an ARM port which runs on this device, and there is a great system called OpenZaurus that is available. There is a proliferation of GUIs out there, as the device comes with Qt embedded, which is pretty slick, but can run X as well. There is also something called PicoGUI, but I haven't found any compelling reason to use it yet. You can download SDKs from TrollTech and write your own apps. You could even load gcc on the Zaurus and do your development right on the handheld.

As to the new model (the 5600): other than getting included speakers/microphone and a better battery, I'm not sure the memory changes are that big an improvement (although if you stick to the default "distro" from Sharp, I suppose they are)... running OpenZaurus on the 5500 with all 64mb of the internal memory as RAM (there is also a 16mb flash partition where you store your main binaries), then having a 64mb SD card in the SD slot and using that for all the add-ons, you have quite a bit of RAM and quite a bit of "disk" space. Much better than the default installation. I suppose the faster CPU would be worth quite a bit of the extra $100+ you'll pay for the newer device, but it's a handheld... how fast does it need to be?

Re:If Linux is so free...

[DeltaSigma]

DivX encoded at that.

Re:If Linux is so free...

[numatrix]

That's not even close to a fair comparison. A $99 palm is so far from features compared to any of the high end PDAs, that it's not even reasonable.

The Palm Tungsten retails for $499, about what the Sl-5600 is projected to retail for. Except the zaurus has 4 times the memory, two memory slots, and a built in keyboard.

Yeap, geeks definetly coded this page

[TitusC3v5]

Couldnt' help but laugh when I checked the page source....

<!--rel newsbit slutt -->

<!-- slutt related -->

<!-- top story slutt -->

Etc.

That's a lot of slutts.

Re:Yeap, geeks definetly coded this page

[Cpt_Kirks]

I didn't know there were so many slutts in this town...

Re:Yeap, geeks definetly coded this page

[Anonymous Coward]

In Norwegian, "slutt" = "end".

Re:If Linux is so free...

[NDPTAL85]

Full motion video for 10 minutes until the batteries are fully drained you mean?

Cool

[montge]

Well that sucks, I just bought a 5500. Oh well, I guess I'll be buying this one at some point also. Probably give the 5500 to one of my employee's as a mobile testing device.

Re:Does it run Linux?

[denisbergeron]

I a precedent message you ask everyone (inluding me) this question about the eighth wonder of the world ...
but it's a handheld... how fast does it need to be?

It's need to be as fast it can, I want to play a 6 hours movie compressed in a 1gig IBM mini harddrive in a plane trip between Montréal and Paris. So it need to be able to decompress the next divx or something like that on the fly (no kitting) :-)

But is the display any better?

[Eala]

I looked at a 5500 a few months ago. The display was a bit dim and fuzzy, not especially good. The iPaq and the Toshiba (model?) display were considerably brighter and sharper; the Sharp, sadly, had about one of the worst color displays of the units on display.

Re:But is the display any better?

[2starr]

Wow, I wonder if you saw a bad unit? I have the SL-5000 (the developer model, but I would think it would be worse) and it really has one of the nicest displays I've seen. It's really beautiful. Are my standards just not high enough?

Re:But is the display any better?

[Phragmen-Lindelof]

I bought four 5500s and am very happy with the display. I will buy a 5600 ASAP, but I really want the larger "size" screen C300. Anyone going to Japan? (Or is bringing a C300 here against the Patroit Act?)

Re:But is the display any better?

[Bill Kendrick]

I'd guess the brightness was turned down in the settings. Hehehehehe...

Re:But is the display any better?

[Bill Kendrick]

Was the screen in 'about to go to sleep' mode? (ie, dimmed) Or were the brightness settings turned down? The Zaurus is just as bright as any iPAQ I've seen, and has truer colors (or at least more pleasing ones) than a number of PocketPC devices I've seen. (They seem to be more red. Yuck)

Re:But is the display any better?

[Eala]

To tell the truth I don't know. The settings must have been turned down because the unit was considerably dimmer than other devices. I'll have to look again, maybe when the 5600 comes out (too late for Christmas, darn it!).

Re:But is the display any better?

[Tailhook]

My 5500 has an outstanding display. It's only of the best features of the machine!

The Zaurus has an intermediate "dimmed" mode that it enters when it's been idle for a bit. Perhaps you saw a display model that was stuck in that mode.

Something is wrong, because the Zaurus display is very nice.

Latest trend: sliding thingies

[Winterblink]

I can't agree with the concept, nor the notion that it's a good idea. Sure, it's neat that it hides the keyboard and all, but this sliding design featured on one of the Palm Tungsten models, and now the Zaurus, is just a bad idea overall. It's a moving part you're going to use all the time, and it'll be the first thing to break. See exhibit A: cell phones with flip covers, or ones with an opening clamshell design. Very slick, very small, but very breakable and are normally the first part of the phone to show its age.

Now, with cell phones it's not so bad because they're not that costly, but with a PDA like the Zaurus or the Tungsten we're talking hundreds of dollars to fix or replace the thing. What was wrong with "software" based keyboards -- the onscreen ones used with current Palms and PocketPC handhelds?

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[bflong]

I've owned a Zaurus since they were realeased. It's a LOT tougher then it looks. My keyboard did become loose, but only after I dropped it six feet onto a concrete sidewalk. It still works fine, btw. Overall it's a very solid device.

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[ichimunki]

It has those. Feel free to avoid using the actual keyboard all you like.

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[yog]

The slide-out keyboard makes sense if it means a larger display area, but I'm disappointed that there's (apparently) no graffiti-style data entry. I guess graffiti is destined to be a temporary kludge from the early years of PDAs, replaced eventually by tiny, unusable keyboards with illogical QWERTY layouts. I wonder if you can at least reprogram it to dvorak.

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[Cyn]

'First the Tungsten' nothing - the Zaurus has been announced, this is a new model with improvements on the old one.

Palm stole the idea from Sharp, if there was any idea stealing. Not that it matters, AFAIK Sharp hasn't licensed RIM's "small keyboard used in conjunction with device that requires electricity" patent, so they'll soon feel the crushing blow of the court order.

stupid patents piss me off.

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[TomHandy]

Let me guess, you think that the engineers at Palm who designed the Tungsten just added the sliding mechanism without any thought to this very issue?

No, in fact, check out this detail from Palm Infocenter's Review of the Tungsten T:

"Palm realizes that this design decision is a potential source of failure (and therefore costly warranty issues) and has taken pains to ensure that it will be very reliable. Part of their design criteria included passing a 100,000 open/close test cycle. (To put that in practical terms, even if you open and close the device 3 times an hour, 16 hours a day, the slider should provide at least 6 years of faithful service.)"

I'm not sure about the Sharp Zaurus but I wouldn't be surprised if they did something similar. I think some people like to think they are smarter than the engineers who design this hardware, but it is baffling to me to think that you would really believe that the people at Palm would design that sliding mechanism on the Tungsten T without even thinking about the issue of how much stress it would handle.

-Tom

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with those screen keyboards is they're hard to use. Zaurus's keyboard is small, but you get used to it after a while. Much faster than grafiti or the ole hunt and peck with the stylus.

Besides, I'm sure when it breaks (though it seems pretty sturdy), I'll be ready for the next one.

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[delta407]

The Zaurus includes a "software" keyboard (actually, several different types) if you so prefer.

See page 34 of the Zaurus SL-5500 user guide (sharp-usa.com is now offline, hence the Google translation).

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[djradon]

Actually, it does have graffiti-style data entry, and yes there is a ipkg that allows you to use dvorak at: http://opie.handhelds.org/feed/zaurus/opie-dvorak_ 0.9.1-4_arm.ipk

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[i0lanthe]

Agreed, most of the "random people post a review of their new Tungsten" reviews that I've read also said that the keyboard slider felt more solid and reliable than they'd expected. So far, it doesn't sound like the sort of fatal flaw that was originally predicted.

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[V4L1S]

If you think that qwerty is an illogical layout, I don't see why dvorak is any better on a handheld. Neither were designed for typing with one's thumbs.

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[yog]

What you're saying makes sense, and yet objects are designed and every day that contain serious flaws. Take, as a random example, the Palm III series. The glass display is extremely fragile and cracks if you look at it wrong. I've had two break on me, one from a fall of about 12 inches from my shirt pocket to a carpet-on-concrete type of floor. I wonder if plastic or a slightly thicker and stronger glass would have solved this.

Needless to say, I have little faith in Palm's engineering when it comes to durability, though I admire the elegance of the product otherwise.

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[TomHandy]

That's an interesting example but completely irrelevant to the point I was making, that Palm's Engineers DID take this issue of the sliding mechanism to account and made sure it passed a 100,000 cycle stress test.

Regarding the screen on the Palm III, I haven't heard too much of this, but clearly that isn't a problem with more recent Palm models (and the Palm III is quite an old model), so it seems pretty clear they have resolved that as well.

-Tom

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[macshit]

I have a sort of electronic dictionary thingy that uses the clamshell design -- screen on one half, keyboard on the other. I've owned it for almost nine years, and since I carry it in my backpack and use it constantly, it's beat all to shit: the paint/coating is almost all worn off, the screen is all scratched, the case is cracked, and literally has holes in it (it's well-acquainted with the concept of `flying through the air onto concrete').

The hinge, of all things, still works perfectly -- both mechanically and electronically.

So while I think you're certainly right that moving parts are more likely to be a problem than non-moving parts, it seems that making them durable is quite possible, and since such designs usually offer some nice advantages, it's a reasonable tradeoff in many cases.

Re:Latest trend: sliding thingies

[djradon]

Except that if you use DVORAK regularily (I don't), it's great to have that option on your handheld. It's an important feature-- one that Linux must have, since PocketPC and Palm already do.

BTW, after successfully returning my SL-5500 today, I noticed the plastic screen protector on the TV set at my friend's place. Oops.

Message to Sharp: I love the Zaurus, and I returned it only because I'm trying to decide whether to wait for the new one. I guess I'm a classic industry problem.

Re:This is not a troll GNU question

[nother_nix_hacker]

Will I have to call it GNU/Zaurus?

Is it a PDA yet?

[Trinition]

Last I saw a Sharp linux-based PDA, it wasn't a PDA, but a pocket-based computer. You still had to partition the RAM between execution and storage, funny ways of launching apps, etc.

Palm has a very elegant PDA solution. And its very difficult to bend it to do non-PDA things (i.e. play MP3s, movies, etc.) SOny is doing a good job, and PalmOS 5 shoudl make things even easier. Then there is this other way where you try to mimick a PDA out of a computer. You lose the simplicity of the PDA but gain the power of a computer.

Is there a ahppy medium, or should we just stop trying to cram the two into one package?

Re:Is it a PDA yet?

[Lumpy]

You still had to partition the RAM between execution and storage, funny ways of launching apps, etc.


same way the windows CE and pocket PC has worked.. Hell Palm does this, you just dont have the ability to adjust the ratio.

what pocket computing OS do you use that doesnt do this fancy ram tricks to keep the users from wearing out the flash ram by installing and uninstalling apps every 5 minutes?

Re:Is it a PDA yet?

[swv3752]

Agenda VR3

Re:Is it a PDA yet?

[Bill Kendrick]

Uh - Based on your description, you more likely saw a Sharp NON-LINUX-based PDA. (e.g., one of the older Japanese models)

Re:Is it a PDA yet?

[Trinition]

No, the thing ran Linux. A friend of mine got it at JavaOne at a discount price, and it came with some Java stuff on it. But the Java stuff was was just a gimick for the convention. It was an honest-to-god Linux computer sitting in his hand. My Sony Clie ran circles around it in PDA functions, but I'm sure he could've whipped out a C compiler and made me shut up. He eventually sold the thing because he had no use for it and the cash he got for it exceeded the price he paid (discounted at the convention).

Zaurii?

[Anonymous Coward]

Is it Zauruses or Zaurii?

Zauruses: 1. Zaurus is not a Latin word (and Z is almost never used in Latin); 2. if it were a Latin word, it would be Zauri, not Zaurii.

Re:Zaurii?

[floydigus]

But is Zaurus a faux-Latin word? If so, then you would have thought that Latin rules would apply.

Re:Zaurii?

[Dr. Smeegee]

Faux-Latin rules, anyway. :-)

Re:Zaurii?

[Subito]

Actually, not necessarily. You assume that Zaurus is a 2nd declension noun. It could just as easily be an irregular or 4th declension, in which case it would be Zaurus with a long last "u".

It runs Linux!!!

[Dot.Com.CEO]

So what? I mean, I can appreciate the geekiness of it, but what about the apps that come with it? Having played with a previous model for about 3 hours I found the bundled apps lacking a unified look and feel, and vastly inferior to the Palm equivalents.

PDA means Personal Digital Assistant. The Zaurus, geek factor aside, does not really know what it is. Is it a pda? A mini pc? A linux geek's toy?

Re:It runs Linux!!!

[timeOday]

Can I plug it into a folding keyboard and run emacs? That would blow my m515 away...

Re:It runs Linux!!!

[ichimunki]

You have got to be kidding right?

Screw the bundled apps. This is a Linux machine. You can do stuff with it that you can only dream about doing on a Palm... examples: run ruby, run perl, run Python (the real thing, not pippy), compile applications using gcc, etc-- it does come bundled with a mini-Office-like suite, the Opera web browser and a Java VM. Apps I've got that I like so far: media player (for mp3s), konqueror web browser, "today" application (which presents a snapshot of the day, a feature the PIM on Palm doesn't do well, and even the improved Visor version has only marginal support for), Pac-Man, NetHack, frotz (to play interactive fiction), VIM (text editor), konsole, ssh...

And it does know what it is: Personal Mobile Tool. Says it right there on the case.

Re:It runs Linux!!!

[Dot.Com.CEO]

Well, you actually prove my point. Your argument had nothing to do with ergonomics or with the quality of PDA software.

My answer? If you need emacs on your pda, then by all means, the Zaurus is perfect for you! Otherwise, perhaps there are better choices.

Re:It runs Linux!!!

[DeltaSigma]

Precisely. Sharp wants it to be whatever YOU want it to be. They didn't choose to load Linux on the thing just to sell to geeks, they chose it because it was more customizable, because people could write their own apps, because it could be rewritten to later support some futuristic rediculously powered CF peripheral one day that allows you to SSH into God's BSD box, anything!

Some call it over-powered, some call it under-powered. Regardless, there's one title that the Sharp Zaurus holds over every other PDA/PocketPC on the market. That title is: "Most Agile PDA/PocketPC on Earth."

Re:It runs Linux!!!

[palmpunk]

Bundled apps don't mean much to the power user. I have replacements for every one of the Palm apps on my Clie. Well, except for expense, but I haven't even found a use for that one yet...

Remember, you have both the power of Java and Linux on this device. If one app does not suit you, feel free to write a new one!

Re:It runs Linux!!!

[Bill Kendrick]

So what? So hundreds of thousands of developers can easily port tens of thousands of random applications. Users and companies can easily and cheaply build their own apps for in-house use.

In other words, sure, most "joe average" end-users won't care that it runs Linux. They WILL care that there's so much software being developed for it, so quickly. On average, about 2 new applications have been released per day. (About 600 apps listed on ZSI when the Zaurus (dev model, even) had only been out about 10-11 months.)

Re:It runs Linux!!!

[Bill Kendrick]

(Emacs) That, uh, wasn't the question. But no. No folding keyboard is available yet (that I know of). I don't recall, but I THINK emacs is available, though. Vi is, at the least. :^)

But again, that wasn't the point. :^P

Re:If Linux is so free...

[Anonymous MadCoe]

Free software is not like free beer. Have a look at gnu.org...

Re:Does it run Linux?

[ThrasherTT]

but it's a handheld... how fast does it need to be?

Well once the linux version of Doom 3 is released... need I say more? ;-)

Mod this down

[TrekCycling]

Mod this down. A major disappointment? I'll remember that while riding the train to work, programing PHP on my web server and listening to MP3s. Maybe when I get home, pop in my wireless card and SSH into my server to check mail on Pine I'll compose an email to everyone saying stay away from the Zaurus. It's not useful for anything.

Lots of pretty doctored pictures

[roystgnr]

It would have been nice to see what the display actually looks like, not just screenshots pasted onto the photographs.

Re:Lots of pretty doctored pictures

[Partisan]

According to the article it's got the same screen as a 5500. Goto Fry's or Compusa and play with one.

Re:Lots of pretty doctored pictures

[pantherace]

What that appears to be is screenshots captured from a VNC viewer (specifically for zaurus) running on a pc, connected to a VNC server on a Zaurus.

RAM Decision

[zsazsa]

I think they made a bad decision on the ram:

Rather than using a split-RAM architecture like the Sl-5500 and Pocket PCs do, the SL-5600 will have 32 MB of RAM that is dedicated to just active memory.

While the Sharp rom on the SL-5500 leaves your hands tied and dedicates the 64MB built-in ram 50/50 to ramdisk and available RAM, various custom ROM images like the Crow rom and OpenZaurus let you move the ramdisk to an SD flash card while freeing up all 64MB for usable RAM.

Having only 32MB for main memory REALLY ties your hands. Is SDRAM really so expensive that Sharp couldn't have used 64MB for main memory?

Re:RAM Decision

[Cyn]

or more importantly, can you switch it out and get as much RAM as you want to burn energy keeping powered?

hello 256mb of RAM
hello slow-ass-sync. woops

but you do make a good point, end user customization is a good thing.

The best way to impress friends and co-workers

[oob]

..is to walk into the server room, plug the Z's serial cable into the server that just died, press "on" and type "minicom" - while your co-worker is still looking at the "lilo:" prompt on his/her laptop.

Yes the serial cable blocks the physical keyboard drawer, but the software keyboard is more than adequete (I'm too scared to use graffiti as root on a production system.)

Re:The best way to impress friends and co-workers

[vanman2004]

Whoa. I want. So you can open up a CLI and just start running *nix commands. How stripped down is the CLI (i.e. what apps/utils does it have)? Also, how could I go about getting an ethernet adaptor for one?

Re:The best way to impress friends and co-workers

[dan the person]

Also, how could I go about getting an ethernet adaptor for one?

You walk into your favourite electronics/computer store and say "Please sell me a CompactFlash ethernet adaptor"

Neat Toy...

[dissonant7]

...but is there any word on when\if they're going to make a linux based PDA\Cellphone combo like the Treo or that Pocket PC Communicator thing? Or have they already? Can the Pocket PC Communicator be hacked to run linux (and if you did, are there linux drivers\dialing programs to allow you to use the phone part?)? I just don't have the pocketspace for both a PDA and a cell...

Re:Neat Toy...

[Bill Kendrick]

I've seen photos of a Linux- and Qtopia-based device from Sharp (with a keyboard, though not a sliding one) called "Iris" that was shown (at CEBIT?) in Germany which was a PDA/Cellphone combo. I think it had a smaller screen (160x240) and possibly a slower StrongARM CPU.

Re:Holy cow

[TrekCycling]

Am I on Slashbay? Besides, why would someone want a 5000D after reading this?

Re:Does it run Linux?

[idontgno]

With 32 M of ram and a 400MHz processor, I wonder how long it would take to compile a new kernel from source? (Assuming you had enough CF/SD storage to hold it)

Rom update for 5500 users?

[TrekCycling]

I just wanted to give a shout-out to all the current 5500 users... Uh, seriously, though, we should all email Sharp and let them know that it would be nice if they'd kick a ROM update down to us. There are known problems with the current Zaurus software (especially the PIM) that have been fixed in Opie. I know, I know, run OpenZaurus. OpenZaurus has problems too. So it would be nice if we could get an official Sharp ROM update that included the newer Qtopia. Who's with me?

Re:Rom update for 5500 users?

[Duwke]

I hear you pain... OpenZaurus isn't quite there, and I would like some more fixes, particular the lackluster PIM applications. Just tell me who I need to email!

Re:This is not a troll Beowulf question

[barfarf]

"Could you actually make a Beowulf cluster out of these?"

Well, apparently there is a cluster project for ipaq linux, why not for the Zaurus?

http://handhelds.org/projects/ipaqsetup.html

Most interesting thing...

[Psiren]

The most intesreting thing about this is that they are releasing another model. This must mean that they've made enough mondey from the previous model to justify it. Which must be a first for a Linux-based PDA. I have an Agenda, and while it was fun to play with for a while, it was way too slow to be useful. Obviously enough people think otherwise about the Zaurus.

Re:Most interesting thing...

[Anonymous Coward]

This must mean that they've made enough mondey from the previous model to justify it.

False. Any number of internal political reasons, previously allocated budgets, or contractual obligations could also explain this. But I agree, it's interesting and I like your optimism.

Re:Most interesting thing...

[Locutus]

The thing I find interesting is that HP, and others who ship a WinCE based device, don't ship this with the OpenZaurus ROM installed or even on a CD for user installation. Especailly HP since they really started this with www.handhelds.org and the iPaq.

It leads me to believe they have some contractual agreement with Microsoft which prevents this just like the PC OEMs. I know Microsoft payed AT&T $5billion to put WinCE on 5million settop boxes but is HP, Dell, etc being paid to put WinCE on their PDA's? Microsoft could be paying for 100% of the support costs too and that would be attractive enough for anyone selling a WinCE product....

I hope to see the mainstream press pick up this story/product release. It was also good to see IBM and CDL using Linux/Qtopia on that security minded PDA. Many I've shown the Zaurus to said they were going to purchase one when they were looking at WinCE devices. Sharp needs to market this more. IMHO.

LoB

Re:Most interesting thing...

[RevAaron]

At this point, why would HP bother shipping their iPAQs with OpenZaurus installed or on a CD? The only people interested in running Linux instead of WinCE on their PDAs are generally Linux enthusiasts.

Think like a consumer, not as a Linux cheerleader: what advantages goes Linux have over PocketPC? There has to be some. Stability isn't so much of an issue on the PDA, as WinCE is remarkably stable and manageable compared to desktop Windows. Being open source? That's not much of a selling point for the vast majority of consumers.

All too often I'm told that with OpenZaurus, you have the option of running X11 and being able to run apps remotely from your desktop. Wow- just what ever consumer needs! (and can be done on WinCE and PocketPC, for free as well.)

What about the disadvantages to Linux on the PDA?
A lot less software. Even less regular PDA, bidnezz software. Often less robust software. Almost no one runs it. No real handwriting recognition, only character recognition. (what would keep me from running Linux on an iPAQ)

I mean, why the hell would HP ship with OpenZaurus, when people have to submit an "Ask Slashdot" to find an email client for OpenZaurus? What kind of PDA doesn't have a passable email client out of the box?

Yeah, I think it would be cool for HP to put a little link on their site to a version of the ROM ready to go for their iPAQs, but it's something that so few people would want that it's not woth the confusion it might end up causing in their regular customers. Almost anyone that would even remotely want to run OpenZaurus has the interest and the ability to find it at openzaurus.sf.net.

Re:Most interesting thing...

[Locutus]

To be able to provide what the customer whens and when they want it. That's what an open platform allows OEM's like HP. Instead, they have to wait for Microsoft to decide what's right/wrong for customers.

These PDA's( Zaurus and other pocket PC's ) are for power users and corporations. The average consumer is confused by PC's and anything that actually does 2 or more things at once. They buy PalmOS devices. They're simpler.

I just thought it was strange that HP has done little to promote their own "baby". BTW, the fact that the Zaurus runs Linux isn't as important as what you get because of it. Full access to the platform and it works. Not to mention that it even has an easy to use interface. IMHO.

I know a guy who worked for a company which bought 5 iPaqs so they would be sure to have one working for the demo's. It was the OS and not the hardware causing the problems. Maybe WinCE is like it's big brother. If you don't strain it at all it works ok.

LoB

Re:Most interesting thing...

[RevAaron]

An open platform means that HP provides hardware where you can put Linux on it if you want, rather than stick with PocketPC. Because HP provides this open, flashable hardware platform, you don't have to wait for Microsoft to decide what is right for you. You have the power to do that yourself. Other than being a novelty, what does PDA Linux have to offer most of HP's consumers? With or without OpenZaurus, they have their open platform.

Your average consumer wants to get her dollar's worth. Your average consumer has been trained over her entire lifetime to think that bigger is better. Your average consumer can sit through a commercial long enough to hear that the iPAQ has a faster processor, more RAM, and can do more. It doesn't take a genius of a consumer to be swayed by such. There is an increasing fraction of people buying PocketPCs, even when all they need is a $30 daybook.

Hell, most people don't need a PDA at all, just one of those $30 day books. That doesn't keep them from buying PDA. Your average consumer doesn't need a computer that does much more than word process, surf the web and do email- yet they get suckered into buying 2 GHz machines when a 600 MHz machine would be more than adequate.

Your average consumer doesn't care if you get full access to the platform.

Again, I never had problems during the period when I used the iPAQ with PocketPC 2000. During the period I was running Linux on it, I had more problems, but not related to stability. WinCE is so very far from perfect, but it's a relatively robust platform, more so than Palm OS. I don't doubt that Linux crashes less than WinCE, but WinCE doesn't crash often enough for it to be annoying. Perhaps your friend needs to review his coding skills for whatever demo he was working on, sounds like the problem is indeed in software, but most likely in the demo he was running.

Re:Most interesting thing...

[ModOut]

yea people think otherwise tons of em i want a zarus for christmas great things and more versatile than any other pda as you can write your own software more easily and redo the entire os if you want to i hope i get one

Re:Holy cow

[Lumpy]

sure.. I'd give ya $100.00 for it if I didnt just get one from Ebay for $98.00.

always get tech 2 generations behind... it's tons cheaper and makes the techs at work cry when you got the same thing they did 19 months later but for 1/8th the price.

Screen size?

[delta407]

The SL-5600 includes ... the same 16-bit TFT QVGA 240x320 display as the previous model [SL-5500].

<snip>

the SL-C300 ... opens width-wise to reveal a landscape-mode full-VGA 640x480 color display, the same size as the display on the SL-5600

Well? Which is it?

If the 5600 is the same size as the 5500, then it's likely 240x320, but then I can't explain the second part...

Re:Screen size?

[Sux2BU]

The SL-C300 is the mini-laptop that will be available in Japan. That one has the 640x480 display. The SL-5600 is the Pocket PC that will be available in the US in a couple months. It has the 240x320 display.

Re:Screen size?

[numatrix]

Story made a mistake. It's 240x320. Also, they made another mistake; the name was changed to SL-C700 to avoid confusion with the already released in japan A300.

Re:Screen size?

[denisbergeron]

The same size it's not the same pixels.
In my home, I have two 15 inch monitors, one can do 800X600 (it's pretty old by now) and the other can do 1280x1024
Both have the same size : 15 inch, but one have more pixels than the other.

Re:Screen size?

[moonbender]

Eh? Unless the CRT is really old (ie. pre multi-sync), it should be able to display just about every resolution you throw at it. 1280x1024 will look terrible on either, of course, but unlike LCDs, CRTs aren't fixed to a certain number of pixels displayed. They just get all fuzzy if run at way to high resolutions.
Of course, you might have tried displaying resolutions higher than 800x600 at too high refresh rates, which the monitor (hopefully) won't even try to display. But that's really a different issue.

Re:Screen size?

[dan the person]

Eh, nope. Multisync monitors still have an upper resolution limit.

Or are you saying your 15 inch CRT monitor does do 128000000x1024000000 abeit at 0.0005Hz refresh?

All the monitors i've used just switch off if you try going past their highest resolution.

Re:If Linux is so free...

[krinsh]

no, it can't. can the $300-$500 Palm play it? I don't know.

Re:But will it run

[TrekCycling]

Just wait. You joke, but there are always people on the mailing lists, a few days after they buy their Z, asking if they can install PocketPC.

Re:Don't get too excited.

[GreyPoopon]

The 5500 was a major disappointment

Is this from personal experience? Or do you have an article to cite? Or is it just a troll?

A desktop operating system - especially one as unfriendly as Linux - does not automatically make a great consumer device OS

This is smelling more and more like a troll. The SL-5xxx series uses a form of embedded Linux, which is clearly not the same animal. Linux itself is the kernel. All the extra crap you get on top of it is part of the distribution. The 5xxx series doesn't use KDE. It doesn't use Gnome. None of the stuff that you would use to determine whether the desktop was friendly or not exists on this machine. Instead, they use an embedded version of Qt. If you'd like to cite some articles about disappointment with this approach, I'd be more than happy to change my opinion.

And the Java implementation was an out of date joke.

Out of date? Oh, now I know this is a troll; the 5xxx series uses PersonalJava 1.2, which is the same spec that is CURRENTLY available from Sun.

Basically Sharp didn't appear to care at all about the quality of the software on the 5500.

You know, I'd much rather have them concentrate on the hardware more. Software can always be replaced. I have a Compaq iPaq sitting at home in a drawer that no longer gets used. Why? Because the hardware is mostly junk. Low battery life. And it crashes if you look at it wrong, losing EVERYTHING on it. And the backup process was just too S-L-O-W to be worth it. It's just not reliable. At least this new unit is designed with the flash memory to hold your data, even in the event of a complete power failure. That would have been a nice feature on the iPaq (instead of having to buy a flash card).

Re:If Linux is so free...

[krinsh]

Excellent. Thank you for that answer! I know I burned through some people's mod points but that is *exactly* what I wanted to know. But riddle me this, then: why does the high-end Palm cost about the same if everyone whines about 'laptop tax' and the like? Maybe I'm not making a good comparison here but I guess I just don't see why Joe Palm User would move to another operating platform.

Re:If Linux is so free...

[krinsh]

There are no comparable Palm models.. You should really do a little bit of research before posting, or trolling (whichever applies ^_^).

Both, apparently. I saw the price, looked at the local gadget shop's prices for high-end Palm/WinCE and other models, and thought there was little difference. Seems I was wrong.

Re:If Linux is so free...

[krinsh]

OK... but I don't remember what iPAQ runs on. Perhaps a good review of the two devices is in order.

Re:This is not a troll Beowulf question

[floydigus]

It's not as if I know the first thing about clusters, but this is a linux device with networking capabilities, provided you buy an interface card. So my guess is, yes.

Re:If Linux is so free...

[FatherOfONe]

First let me say that I love the Zaurus. I own a Palm V and a IPaq3970. However to say that Palm doesn't have anything to compare to the Zaurus isn't correct.

The new Sony (based off Palm OS) compares quite well to the Zaurus. Both are on similar hardware. Granted that the NEW Zaurus is on the Xscale processor, while the Sony is on the 20x ARM processor. BUT notice that Sharp doesn't say that their apps are 2x as fast! A lot of work has to be done to run great on the new Xscale processor, and I doubt that Sharp did that work. Or if they did, not all the apps are tuned for the new processor. In short they both rock for processing power on a PDA.

Next lets talk video. The Sony has a built in camera. The Sharp doesn't.

The Sony has 320X480 resolution, the Sharp has 320X240. Sony wins.

Both have fold out keyboards.

Both have CF slots

The Sony has a boat load more apps.

The Sharp could be your PDC and Web server and probably run MySQL.

The Sony cost more, but is out now.

The Sony runs Palm OS5. The Sharp runs Linux.

The Sharp has a great browser for surfing on a PDA.

Neither one have a good wireless solution or built in Bluetooth. It must be noted that the Sharp does offer a HUGE wirelss modem attachment, that nobody would want to carry and cost around $40/month. Both do support 802.11b CF wireless cards.

Both devices lack driver support for CF cards compared to Pocket PC devices.

Hmmm looks like I just did a comparision of the two products.

In my opinion either one is great. It just depends on what you want to do. If either one offered a good wireless solution I would have gone with it over my Ipaq. God pocket pc 2002 sucks!

Future NY Times Article

[Sux2BU]

Mysterously, 36 computer employees were killed late Monday night and early Tuesday morning around the country while setting up a display for a new pocket PC. Fellow employees witnessed an arch of electricity hitting the victims and surrounding electronics. One witness commented "it was like a scene out of Command and Conquer." The manufacturer of the pocket PC, Sharp, refused to comment officially on the incidents, saying only "we have the most powerful line of pocket PCs on the face of the planet".

Time to buy

[notanatheist]

With a 5600 coming out soon you can get good deals on the 5500. I just picked mine up for $230!! It's a beautiful PDA/minicomputer. I can type on it nearly as fast as I can write. Makes taking notes in church and throwing them on my computer that much easier. Add $40 to that price for the 128MB CF I'll have tomorrow and you're still not looking at a bunch of money for something you should be careful not to drool on. I'll be learning all about battery life at Comdex in a couple weeks. For now though, playing a little chess and listening to music while sitting around is hard to beat.

Re:Time to buy

[myusername]

where did you get it from for that price?

Re:If Linux is so free...

[zapfie]

Too bad the two concepts can't be rolled into one.. I bet a lot of geeks would like free beer with their free software.

Different Processor

[snolan]

Anyone have details on the reason to switch from the StrongARM to Intel?

Re:Different Processor

[farnz]

StrongARM is an Intel product, acquired when they bought DEC's chip arm; XScale is the new brand for the high end redesign of StrongARM.

It's still based on the same instruction set, it's just a newer chip. Same sort of change as Intel 486 to Intel Pentium.

Re:Different Processor

[snolan]

Thanks for the answer - I did not realize. :-)

Re:Does it run Linux?

[Cyn]

IIRC the ibm microdrive is a bit of a power hog.

good luck getting any device that can read from it to do so for 6 hours, while powering a display, without being plugged in.

Re:Press release from sharp

[denisbergeron]

Redundant, Redundant, Redundant,

Please point my to the same information since the site is slashdotted !

Re:If Linux is so free...

[perlyking]

heh well I get -1 troll for my post too :-)
Ah well I have plenty of karma, might as well burn some sometimes eh? ;-)

I suppose it all hinges on what the feature required is, a zaurus isnt comparable to a palm for pda functionality - but you can't beat the zaurus for sheer geekiness - "hey i'm running mysql/perl on here!".
The problem for me is I dont have a zaurus yet and now I have to make a choice - old and cheap or new and expensive :-(

I want the C300!

[10Ghz]

Sharp's other new model is the SL-C300, previewed recently at CEATAC. The C300 has the same internal hardware and software as the SL-5600, but is slightly larger in each direction The device opens width-wise to reveal a landscape-mode full-VGA 640x480 color display, the same size as the display on the SL-5600, and a mini-sized QWERTY keyboard. The keyboard has larger, finger-friendly keys and separate numeric and alphabetic keys, as wel as traditional directional buttons. It has a smaller, 950 ma battery, as Sharp expects it to be used more as a laptop alternative than a handheld. Unfortunately, the C300 is not slated for release outside of Japan.

I want C300! Hell, I would love to get the regural Zaurus, but they are not available here (Finland) :(!

Re:Does it run Linux?

[denisbergeron]

Most of modern airplane have 110 volt plug for the conveniance of the clients.
But, anyways, if I can affort a Zaurus, with an Ibm Microdrive, I can affort an second or a third batteries :-)

Re:Does it run Linux?

[Iguanaphobic]

I already get over 10 hours using my external NIMH powerpack from RadioShack. About the size of 2 packs of cards, it powers my Z and my Fuji s602 when I'm away from AC for extended periods.

Oh, I use both devices with a 340MB Microdrive.

PDA as portable serial console

[Anonymous Coward]

You can do this with almost any of the PDAs with serial cable sync, the appropriate cable/adaptor, and any of several terminal software programs. I've done this trick with ancient USR Pilot 5000 and my obsolecent Vx.

Worried about graffiti while logged in as root? PRACTICE (and learn the strokes your terminal software uses for , , and various vi commands).

Yes, a real VT-100 terminal is better. But a crashcart in your pocket beats the one not in the server room.

Re:If Linux is so free...

[pantherace]

Nope, at least long enough for an hour-long episode of most anything. (divx/mpeg4 off cf card) I have previously watched a whole episode of babylon 5 (mpeg1 I believe) over the internet via wireless (802.11b)

This is using mplayer-0.90pre5 for the b5 and mplayer-0.90pre8 for the divx (pre5 could have/can, but I just didn't play a long divx on it.)

Buy it in the UK.

[jotaeleemeese]

I am sure sharp will be happy to deliver there:

http://www.sharp.co.uk

Re:Buy it in the UK.

[peope]

Nopes..

They do not deliver outside UK.

Re:writeable ROM ?

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget this marketing propaganda, they use flash ram, thats it, and the rom itself is a flash rom, yes you can write it but not too often. (the flash rom is used for software updates of the core software)
Btw. I have a Z5500 excellent tool once you add a few programs, the best PDA Ive used so far, but not for the average joe blow, the soft has still a few rough edgest left where the console comes handy from time to time.

Re:Am I the only one

[Anonymous Coward]

Basically you are right but you forget one thing, those mainframes you mentioned Unix was designed for had much less ram and less powerful processors than the average PDA, the Z even has more ram and is more powerful than the machine Linus wrote his first Linux version on :-)

Larger Linux tablet-PC / PDA / IA alternative

[Anonymous Coward]

If your looking for more Linux mobile computing goodness, THIS looks pretty cool. It's not really a PDA as you can't slip it in your pocket, but it's not really a laptop / tablet PC either. It looks like a Linux version of Microsoft's Mira product. Still pretty cool looking...

Re:If Linux is so free...

[krinsh]

Gotcha there. Truthfully, I like the geek factor (as opposed to the cool factor) in some of my gear too; but I didn't want to troll. I think you guys should have modded me flamebait instead though. I recognized HUNDREDS of Linux benefits for businesses and we geeks that support them; but *right now* very little for the users that are stuck with what we provide them. Which is not to say that could change tomorrow.

Quicken integration

[Malc]

I need something like this to sync up with Quicken on my desktop. Can it do it? I've been looking at Pocket Quicken for the Palm.

The zaurus rocks and here's why...

[leeet]

I own a Palm Vx and a Z5500 and I haven't touched my palm since then. Looking back at my palm, I wonder "how could it ever be sold??". The palm is sooo limited in functionality compared to the Zaurus. First of all, you get a shell, which is (to me) worth every penny of the Zaurus. It allows you to do whatever you want and tweak everything in the OS. OpenZaurus allows you to go a step beyond by installing what you want and freeing up some valuable memory.

The *only* disadvantage I found so far is battery life. With a wireless CF card, you can use it for about 1 - 1.5 hours. Now that's bad. Of course, new 802.11b CF cards (type 2) are out and use less power, but I don't feel like shelling another 80$.

Even if you are not a Linux guru, I recommended it for it's basic features. It runs Opera, you can get any kind of instant message, basic office-type tools, etc. It kicks Palm's ass big time.

The slide in keyboard is just amazing. I have no words to express my happiness :)

Now like someone said earlier, try running apache and mysql on your palm...Now that's customization!

If you want better words to compare Palm and Zaurus, let's say that the Palm is a nice agenda with very limited computer functions while the Zaurus is in fact a small computer with nice agenda features. That's how I see it. It's kinda like comparing a typewriter with a computer.

Re:The zaurus rocks and here's why...

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

Looking back at my palm, I wonder "how could it ever be sold??". The palm is sooo limited in functionality compared to the Zaurus. First of all, you get a shell...

OK OK....Lets jusy stop right there shall we? How many PDA owners do you think really need a shell?
Now don't answer just yet. Think really hard about it. Go outside and mingle with the other people in the real world for a while, not the geeks we surround ourselves with, and ask yourself that question again.

Re:The zaurus rocks and here's why...

[leeet]

I agree that top executives don't need such a thing. All they care about is their agenda and phone book. Palm is cool for them.

For a unix admin like myself, the palm pretty much sucks. Good thing I actually won it or I would've kicked myself for buying such a thing.

Battery life, add-ons, etc.

[dadman]

According to the press release from the Japan official site, the battery last 18 hours with Backlight turned off and a static screen.

Another interesting add-on is a Compact Flash XGA adaptor from I.O.Data for video output, now all we need is some nice games.

Oh, there is also the camera CE-AG06 (640x480 color)

Other interesting parameters:
w x d x h: 74mm x 138mm x 18mm (w/o LCD cover)
weight: 205g (w/o LCD cover)
display: 240x320 3.5" 64k color TFT (Front light) (i.e. you can read clearly under direct sun light)

No Bluetooth? Look up Bluetooth support from their developer site.

GPRS / 802.11x ?

[Dwindlehop]

Anybody know if there's any type of wireless support for the Zaurus?

Re:GPRS / 802.11x ?

[Dwindlehop]

Ha. Answered my own question:

Sharp Zaurus 5600
Stay Connected
With wireless connectivity a must for any enterprise environment, the Zaurus SL-5600 comes wireless capable* with dual expansion slots and built-in drivers for numerous Compact Flash connectivity solutions including industry-leading 802.11b wireless LAN adaptors, CDPD Wireless modem, 10/100 Ethernet, and 56K V.90 modems and a plan to introduce 1xRTT and GPRS in 2003. The built-in Compact Flash (Type I and Type II) and SD / MMC slots allow users to add any Compact Flash-based connectivity solution in the Compact Flash - slot and still have room to add more memory in the SD slot without necessitating a jacket, eliminating the need to add to the size and the cost of the unit.

Re:GPRS / 802.11x ?

[dan the person]

95% of 802.11b CF cards work in the zaurus

battery numbers

[jfm3]

Does anyone have actual numbers on battery power, or projected battery life comparisons between the 5500 and 5600?

Dumping my Treo to get a Zaurus...

[Freedom Bug]

As a long-time Palm user, I used to think that PalmOS was the way to go for an Organizer: tons of apps available, all optimized to be simple, as few clicks as possible to do what you want. With a black and white model, your battery lasts forever, which is more important than colour anyways.

Then I got a Handspring Treo. At first it was awesome. Now I was only carrying around a single device, which was smaller the cell phone it replaced, not to mention the Palm. One device, and it fit in my pocket. Added bonus was the integration of my contacts list. Of course, all the apps were originally designed to work with a pen rather than a keyboard, so they were no longer optimally designed, but I still prefered the keyboard to Graffiti.

Then I hooked up GPRS Internet. Suddenly PalmOS didn not seem so hot anymore. When you're on the internet, you want a real computer, period. PalmOS has about 8 different email programs. They all suck for one reason or another, and they all cost real money. SSH sucks. There are a couple of good web browsers, considering, but they're slow and can't do a lot of things.

It really reminds me of 1993 when I was running Linux with SLiRP and it's predecessors giving me real internet access and the windows users were using ProComm or something and only got a single command prompt.

Bryan

Re:If Linux is so free...

[Locutus]

The PDA market is not much different from the PC market. You should determine your immediate needs and your short term (2 years) needs before purchasing a PDA. Of course, political and sociological implications should be factored in also.

The PalmOS devices are very easy to use as PIM functions go. Sony has extended the PalmOS to handle multimedia and memory expansion but they want to promote their memory stick format over the others. Palm really never provided anything but PalmOS API support so you have one application base to work with and it's a large one. Now, Microsofts "partners" have a more feature rich hardware platform than the Palm vendors but the OS is bloated, proprietary, fragile, etc with no where near the application base as Palm. Sharp, takes the feature rich hardware of a pocket PC and puts and open source OS on it( Linux ), a keyboard, and tons of expansion slots/interfaces. The development platform is Linux and you can go with the free Qtopia SDK or the closed-source one if you want a native Qt app. For Java, use any java compiler. On the Zaurus, you can pretty much pick your development env( minus PalmOS and WinCE of course ).

There are some things I'd like to see Qtopia do that the PalmOS apps do better but the underlying PIM functionality is there. The apps are still pouring in and if you want, you can use Qt, Java, or others to program in and make your own apps.

If all you need is a PIM then you might even look at the Franklin products. I think you can get an addressbook for under $40. If you NEED color, the price is going to be pretty close between PalmOS, Sharp, and the WinCE machines. The keyboard is what really limits choice from what I've seen and when I've shown the Z to people ready to purchase a PDA, they've all ended up ready to buy a Zaurus.

Wow, that was long winded.... Figure out what's available. Figure out what you need. Figure out your budget is. Figure out what you might need in 2 years and the go back out and see what's available. Then buy a Zaurus. ;)

LoB

Re:Holy cow

[moonbender]

You do have double the MHz, but it's an XScale CPU, instead of a StrongARM one. It's faste, but nowhere near twice as fast, depending, of course, strongly on what you're running. On the PocketPC platform, there are a few examples of well-designed StrongARM PDAs ranking higher in general benchmarks than some XScale-equipped ones.

Re:Don't get too excited.

[Locutus]

People, this is a TROLL. The Coward has no specifics and generalizes on every point. He/she has never used the new device and may or may not have used the 5500 or 5000 since he/she just generally hates the product.

If it sounds like a troll, smells like a troll, reads like a troll.......

Save some time and move on.

LoB

Re:If Linux is so free...

[pantherace]

No, all of the current palms are based on dragonball cpus (m68k) and are at best 66MHz.

It might be theoretically possible (though not good quality) to have decent video on the m68k palms, if someone hand coded the player. Heck they can't even play mp3s*.

The ARM based palms that are supposed to be coming out (for quite a while now) will be capable of it.

*excluding addons of course.

Re:What are you talking about?

[TrekCycling]

Not saying they haven't supported it. But the updates haven't come terribly frequently and haven't really been earth-shatterning. I'm just hoping they don't abandon us here, because these look like significant updates that could be provided to 5600 users.

I'm mostly speaking from experience as a former PocketPC user who *had* to upgrade to the new WinCE device in order to take advantage of newer software. I'm hoping Sharp doesn't try to do the same thing.

Re:If Linux is so free...

[Kunta Kinte]

I agree with most of what you said, I almost bought a sony ( actually I did but cancelled the order and got a zaurus 5500 instead ). Partly because...

Sony needs a expensive sony memory sticks, whilts zaurus uses the more widely used SD cards.

zaurus is *way* cheaper.

Being linux, much more of the apps *I* am familiar with is available for zaurus. That does not go for everyone, I know.

I agree that both PDAs missed when they decided to leave out builtin bluetooth. With more and more cell phones coming out with data and bluetooth, PDAs would be one of the first things to benefit I'd think.

Re:Still no bluetooth..

[monopole]

I've got a nice little Ambicom BT2000-CF Bluetooth module which is supported within my Zaurus SL-5500. Check out (http://bluez.sourceforge.net/download/zaurus/READ ME.bluez.zaurus.txt. But most of the time I just use my Ambicom WL1100C-CF 802.11b module at my Friendly Neighborhood Starbucks. Expresso and high speed web access using Opera, sweet!
It also supports wired ethernet (great for hotel broadband) and modems.

Re:If Linux is so free...

[zsazsa]

A lot of work has to be done to run great on the new Xscale processor, and I doubt that Sharp did that work. Or if they did, not all the apps are tuned for the new processor.

Okay, so instead of running 'gcc -mtune=strongarm1100', they run 'gcc -mtune=xscale'.

Who wants to buy a Z5500?

[Lord Bitman]

Anybody? Please? :)

Re:If Linux is so free...

[GRW]

How to get a new Zaurus: Find a geek with a new Zaurus. Buy him lots of free beer. When he passes out, steal his Zaurus!

I won't be upgrading

[g4dget]

I have the SL-5500, and I won't be upgrading it to another Zaurus.

First, it's big--even PocketPC machines have gotten much smaller. Sharp sells a Zaurus in Japan that's much smaller (no keyboard, no CF), and they should bring that to the US.

Second, while they have managed to create some decent apps in it, the use of Qt/Embedded causes problems. Qt/Embedded eats up lots of memory (much more than X11+XLib+FLTK) and it makes porting software to the Zaurus a lot of work. Also, it has some annoying bugs, for example, locking up the GUI with focus problems. I thought I could live with Qt/Embedded, but I can't. Having a standard Linux command line environment on the handheld has turned out to be great, and I want the same convenience for the GUI, not some oddball hack.

The main reason for getting a Linux PDA for me is to have something that it's easy to port software to, and something I can carry with me, and the Zaurus just falls short on both accounts. I think the iPaq running Handhelds.org or a Yopy may be a better choice.

Will Canadians be allowed to buy this one?

[GRW]

I tried to find the 5500 in the stores, but was told that it was unavailable in Canada. I wonder if Sharp Canada will carry the 5600.

Re:If Linux is so free...

[Cyn]

How are sony's memorysticks any more expensive than SD memory? In my experience (brick-and-mortar and online reputable) the prices are neck and neck if you take more than 3 minutes to look.

As far as SD goes - my understanding is that you can't use them at particularly decent speeds either, slower than MMC, due to the binary driver not being optimized and - naturally - being closed source.

slutt expained

[Krilomir]

"Slutt" is just Norwegian for "end". Yeah, end of the newsbit and end of the top story and so on... you might have noticed the .no in the server address :)

Pison Revo replacement?

[Krilomir]

This picture from the infosync article looks like the Zaurus C300 could be a good replacement for my Revo. I've never liked PDAs that relied on touch screen writing or sliding keyboards, but, unfortunately, the article says that this one won't be available outside Japan. Too bad. There really isn't anything new out today that will make an good revo-replacement to my knowledge, if you want a modern PDA (color, video & mp3 playback, etc.)

Functionality

[dmallor]

Thats awesome. Now we will have a Zaurus that will run faster and last longer that still is missing some basic functions as already stated. I agree that Sharp needs to make the Zaurus "at least" do what their very first PDA's could do. I don't want to demand too much of them but MY GOD how could one forget to create a notes/memo sycronization app.. Sorry but uploading documents that whipe out category preferences just doesnt cut it.. Don't get me wrong, I love the Zaurus but I have had to give up some real productivity by switching to it.

The battery life problem.

[Christopher Thomas]

The *only* disadvantage I found so far is battery life. With a wireless CF card, you can use it for about 1 - 1.5 hours. Now that's bad. Of course, new 802.11b CF cards (type 2) are out and use less power, but I don't feel like shelling another 80$.

There's always the solution that I considered for my TI-81 calculator: Duct-tape a D-cell pack to the back...

Re:The battery life problem.

[leeet]

Well, there are some alternatives, but that's the whole problem: they are alternatives...

It's like if you had to carry that extra cable/battery thing for your cell phone 95% of the time. It gets annoying.

I don't mind at home/office/car since I can use the AC adaptor (which I have to carry all the time). But when I go downtown for a walk and decide to use it, I can't do more than a couple of hours and that's the problem.

Oh well, I hope the battery will be available for 5500 users...?

Re:Does it run Linux?

[MonMotha]

Probably a very long time.

The kernel for these kinds of things is almost always crosscompiled (I know nobody who has actually done it natively). The xscale isn't really all that fast (and unless the fixed the bug, it also has write-back cache disabled) compared to your desktop. In addition to doing normal CPU bound activies, it also has to handle display and such, dragging it down even further. The integrated nature of the ARM makes it a great chip for PDAs, but it's not exactly a screamer in terms of performance (but it's pretty darned good!)

What's in each PDA.

[Christopher Thomas]

OK... but I don't remember what iPAQ runs on. Perhaps a good review of the two devices is in order.

Check google, or browse the manufacturers' sites for the spec pages.

Palm, last I heard, has a Dragonball processor (slow, but extremely low power).

iPaq has a Super-H processor (200 MHz, decent FP, not-as-low power [in the 0.5-1w range]).

Zarus has an ARM or Xscale processor (depending on model) (200+ MHz, low-power, good integer/poor FP).

This is off the top of my head. Check the respective manufacturers for more info.

Re:What's in each PDA.

[MonMotha]

iPAQ is definately SA-1110 at 206MHz, same as the old Zaurus.

You may be thinking the older HP Jornadas, which had Hitachi Super-H procs?

Also, the reason for the bad floating point is that they lack hardware support for it :) It's all emulated in software.

Re:Don't get too excited.

[Samus]

I can vouch for the java implementation being hard to work with and old. PJ 1.2 is functionally equivalent to java 1.1. You notice this most when you have to work with the awt. There is a reason that Sun replaced it with swing. Yes you can put an old version of swing on it but its large for a pda environment and uses a lot of floating point math thus making it run like a dog on anything arm based.

Everything else though has been pretty decent. Yes there are flaws but overall I like it. I just wish the java support was a bit better.

Re:Holy cow

[TCaM]

I'm not an expert here, but from what I've read one of the biggest reasons that the xscale isnt faster than strongarm on the PocketPC platform is because the MS os doesn't support it properly. Given this I see no reason why the kernel in the zaurus wouldnt be optimized to properly work with the xscale cpu.

Re:Don't get too excited.

[GreyPoopon]

PJ 1.2 is functionally equivalent to java 1.1. You notice this most when you have to work with the awt.

Yeah, you're right -- AWT is a major pain to work with. I wasn't aware that PJ 1.2 was limited to that environment. It seems like Sun could at least devise a scaled-down version of Swing to replace AWT in PJ. Although, some may consider AWT to *be* a scaled-down version of Swing.

here are the facts (Qt/Embedded vs. X11)

[g4dget]

Now how said that ? QT/Embedded was supoosed to cut out the flab from X11/KDE and just port the GUI withut the extra flab, and now you say X11 uses less space ?

The "flab" comes from KDE/Qt, not X11. And it simply turns out that KDE/Qt with flab removed is still much more heavy-weight than X11 with a toolkit that's actually efficient.

Please before you comment like a supposed expert please check out your facts.

I know my facts, but you apparently don't. It's people like you who just mindlessly repeat what some company tells them that are the problem.

These are the facts, measured on my Zaurus and Agenda VR:

• For the resident set size of Qt/Embedded, we get: qpe process, 6.7Mbytes, embeddedconsole, 3.8Mbytes, addressbook, 3.9Mbytes, etc.
• For the resident set size of X11, we get: X11 server, 1.1Mbytes, window manager, 75kbytes, Terminal, 204kbytes. (Similar numbers for X11 on Zaurus hardware.)

Qt/Embedded also seems a lot slower than X11, although I haven't done actual measurements.

Altogether, just because some company tells you that their product is better or more efficient doesn't mean that it is. Go check for yourself if you don't believe me.

Re:here are the facts (Qt/Embedded vs. X11)

[I hate Perl]

" * For the resident set size of X11, we get: X11 server, 1.1Mbytes, window manager, 75kbytes, Terminal, 204kbytes. (Similar numbers for X11 on Zaurus hardware.)
"

Yeah, plus widget set (another 2-3 MB) , plus nice network C++ wrapper ( another 0.5 MB) + nice XML wrapper (1 MB) + nice set of generic containers ( 0.5 MB).
Please, obviously you never wrote a single line of code , for otherwise you would know that raw X11 is pretty much useless as afar as app programming goes.
No to mention the fact that with X11 one usually ends up with multiple set of widget libs since which would be a complete nonsense on a device like the Zaurus.

Re:here are the facts (Qt/Embedded vs. X11)

[g4dget]

Yeah, plus widget set (another 2-3 MB) , plus nice network C++ wrapper ( another 0.5 MB) + nice XML wrapper (1 MB) + nice set of generic containers ( 0.5 MB).

There is no "plus". I gave RSS sizes. Those include all the memory that an application actually uses.

However, if you want to compare shared library sizes, FLTK is a 423kbyte library, and FLEK (sockets, XML, dates, files, math, etc.) is another 282kbytes; the Qt/Embedded equivalents are more than five times larger.

Please, obviously you never wrote a single line of code , for otherwise you would know that raw X11 is pretty much useless as afar as app programming goes.

You just demonstrate again that you jump to conclusions without any factual knowledge.

No to mention the fact that with X11 one usually ends up with multiple set of widget libs since which would be a complete nonsense on a device like the Zaurus.

It's not "nonsense" at all. The main attraction of Linux handhelds is that they require less porting. That means, I want the option of using an existing toolkit if it makes sense, I don't want to be dictated to which toolkit to use. If I have to rewrite the entire GUI anyway, I might as well port to PocketPC or Palm and get a much bigger user base.

Re:here are the facts (Qt/Embedded vs. X11)

[dan the person]

* For the resident set size of Qt/Embedded, we get: qpe process, 6.7Mbytes, embeddedconsole, 3.8Mbytes, addressbook, 3.9Mbytes, etc.

Yes but how much of the RSS is shared? Most of the ram usage you list is probably due to shared libraries that all three apps are using. To work out their memory usage (for simplicities sake ignoring other apps sharing the same libraries) you go (qpe RSS-qpe shared)+(qtmail RSS - qtmail shared) + (console RSS - console shared) + shared ram usage. If you just add up those three apps RSS you get 14.4Mb. Obviously that can't be the way things work cause that would mean just those 3 apps exhaust all the available ram of the SL5000 here.

For instance, running qtmail here it uses 4.2Mb RSS, but 3.6Mb of that is shared! So the amount of extra ram now consumed is 400K.

Looking at the QPE process here it is 6.7Mb RSS and 5Mb shared.

I'm not familiar with the Agenda, what functionality does the window manager provide?

In the case of the Zaurus here, the QPE process gets me a window manager, several on screen keyboards, wireless lan monitor, battery monitor, clock, volume control, application launcher, taskbar, document tab, desktop sync server, and probably more i have forgotten.

I suspect the Agenda 75Kbyte window manager doesn't provide all those features. How much ram is used on the agenda once you start up all the extra processes to provide that funcionality?

Also, there is no KDE flab in Qtopia AFAIK, it's just QT based.

Re:here are the facts (Qt/Embedded vs. X11)

[g4dget]

Yes but how much of the RSS is shared?

Well, given that the QPE process alone is several times as large as X11, the window manager, and the terminal application combined, the question really isn't whether Qt/Embedded is worse in terms of resource usage than X11, but only how much worse. Certainly, claims that Qt/Embedded is smaller or faster than X11-based environments are just erroneous.

Also, there is no KDE flab in Qtopia AFAIK, it's just QT based.

I didn't claim that Qtopia was based on KDE. Please read my message more carefully.

I suspect the Agenda 75Kbyte window manager doesn't provide all those features. How much ram is used on the agenda once you start up all the extra processes to provide that funcionality?

The entire Agenda VR has 8Mbytes of RAM. In that, it runs, comfortably, X11, the window manager, several input methods (keyboard, character recognition), IrDA support, and standard PDA apps.

My overall point is simply this: unlike what people claim, Qt/Embedded is just not an improvement on X11-based handheld environments in terms of either size or performance.

That doesn't mean it's a bad environment. (Actually, if the world needed another Palm-like, all-integrated environment, it would be pretty nice, but I think the world doesn't.) It just means that people should stop making erroneous claims about X11-based handhelds--technically, I see no justification for the existence of Qt/Embedded.

And I personally find the fact that Qt/Embedded doesn't work with standard X11 applications a major problem for my needs. And that is why, as I pointed out, I won't be upgrading my SL-5500.

Re:here are the facts (Qt/Embedded vs. X11)

[dan the person]

the QPE process alone is several times as large as X11, the window manager, and the terminal application combined

The QPE process provides much more functionality than X11 + windowing manager.

Does comparing XFree86 + twm + xterm with KDE make much sense? twm is 50 times smaller than KDE, twm must be better right?

I didn't claim that Qtopia was based on KDE. Please read my message more carefully.

I did read your message carefully, specifically this point

The "flab" comes from KDE/Qt, not X11. And it simply turns out that KDE/Qt with flab removed is still much more heavy-weight than X11

To my reading this implies that Qtopia contains flab from KDE. However, there is no KDE "flab" in Qtopia.

Well, given that the QPE process alone is several times as large as X11, the window manager, and the terminal application combined, the question really isn't whether Qt/Embedded is worse in terms of resource usage than X11, but only how much worse. Certainly, claims that Qt/Embedded is smaller or faster than X11-based environments are just erroneous.

I disagree. My point is that your measurements are incorrect. The QPE process alone is using 1.7Mb, not 6.7Mb. The rest is shared libraries.

And comparing it to an X11 server + window manager is also incorrect. Can you tell me how much ram the QPE windowing server uses? I don't know because it is part of a process for which that is only one small part.

If you want to say which is smaller you either need to compare the agenda X11 + window manager with a stripped down QPE with no application launcher, no task bar, no input methods, no wireless lan monitors, no desktop syncronisation code etc etc etc.

Or find out how much the equivalent agenda applications (if they exist) use and then compare that.

As for speed, i have seen no benchmarks myself, and you have provided none, so in the meantime i'll presume such claims as "X11 is faster than QT" are pure speculation

And I personally find the fact that Qt/Embedded doesn't work with standard X11 applications a major problem for my needs. And that is why, as I pointed out, I won't be upgrading my SL-5500.

Fair enough, but i suspect Sharp doesn't see that as much of a market, the average PDA user doesn't know or care what X11 is.

Re:here are the facts (Qt/Embedded vs. X11)

[g4dget]

I did read your message carefully, specifically this point [...] To my reading this implies that Qtopia contains flab from KDE. However, there is no KDE "flab" in Qtopia.

Well, your reading is wrong. The "flab" I was referring to was the "flab" that was "cut out", not the bloat that remains in QPE and Qt/Embedded after all the "flab" was removed.

The QPE process alone is using 1.7Mb, not 6.7Mb. The rest is shared libraries.

No. The 6.7Mbytes is the resident set size, i.e., the amount of RAM that the QPE process needs to run. Yes, that includes portions of shared libraries that the process needs to run (it also does on the Agenda numbers), so let's say for the sake of argument that all other processes combined use no memory whatsoever--that way we can be certain that we count not a single byte twice. Then, the QPE process uses more memory than the entire Agenda software environment uses, including X11 server, toolkit, input methods, task bar, wireless LAN monitors, desktop synchronization, etc. The Agenda only has 8Mbytes. And the numbers are roughly the same if you run X11 on the Zaurus.

No matter how you apportion it, QPE is worse than X11 in terms of resource usage. Face the facts.

If you want to say which is smaller you either need to compare the agenda X11 + window manager with a stripped down QPE with no application launcher, no task bar, no input methods, no wireless lan monitors, no desktop syncronisation code etc etc etc.

I stated what I compared.

Does comparing XFree86 + twm + xterm with KDE make much sense? twm is 50 times smaller than KDE, twm must be better right?

Well, it is the Qt/Embedded proponents that claim that smaller is better, not me. I merely point out that Qt/Embedded happens to be pretty heavyweight, in particular compared to X11.

As for speed, i have seen no benchmarks myself, and you have provided none, so in the meantime i'll presume such claims as "X11 is faster than QT" are pure speculation

They are not "speculation", they are observation, as I indicated. I have a Zaurus (as well as several other handhelds), and I have run the window systems on identical hardware. It is also my observationthat QPE or Qt/Embedded is susceptible to focus problems that require a reboot--not good on handhelds.

Fair enough, but i suspect Sharp doesn't see that as much of a market, the average PDA user doesn't know or care what X11 is.

Based on actually using it, I think the "average PDA user" would be a fool to buy a Zaurus. A Palm is a much better handheld for day-to-day PDA usage: it's smaller, it's lighter, it's better supported, it's cheaper, and it interfaces better with Windows, OS X, and (ironically) Linux. The only area where Linux-based PDAs can shine is for software development, but the Zaurus GUI is incompatible with all Linux and UNIX toolkits and desktop environments except one. In my opinion, the Zaurus has no future, at least in the US market: it's not a good consumer device, and it's not a good device for hackers.

In any case, all I said is that I won't be ugprading my SL-5500, and I gave the reasons why. You are free to waste your money in whatever way you like.

Re:here are the facts (Qt/Embedded vs. X11)

[dan the person]

The "flab" comes from KDE/Qt, not X11. And it simply turns out that KDE/Qt with flab removed is still much more heavy-weight than X11

OK so the flab is what was cut out, and what remains is "bloat", not sure i can see the distinction between the two terms but let me correct my statement anyway: To my reading this implies that Qtopia contains bloat from KDE. However, there is no KDE "bloat" in Qtopia. There is no KDE at all.

No matter how you apportion it, QPE is worse than X11 in terms of resource usage. Face the facts.

Yes, QPE is worse than X11 in resource usage. GNOME is also worse than X11 in resource usage.
Your comparison is flawed. X11 is a windowing server, Qtopia is much more.

Lets suppose we decided you were right, and instead of using QTEmbedded on top of the linux framebuffer, we used regular QT and stuck an X11 server inbetween QT and the linux frame buffer. You are saying this X11 solution is a ligherweight solution than QT straight on the framebuffer?

the QPE process uses more memory than the entire Agenda software environment uses, including X11 server, toolkit, input methods, task bar, wireless LAN monitors, desktop synchronization, etc. The Agenda only has 8Mbytes.

So the QPE process, including shared memory, at 6.7Mb, uses more memory than the entire agenda environment? How much does the entire agenda enviroment use? This review i dug up says it uses 6Mb.

http://www2.math.uni-potsdam.de/agenda/reviews.p hp ?op=showcontent&id=1 :
Incidently, 8 megs is not enough RAM, considering that 75% percent of it is used up by the time the VR3 boots

I am also curious, when you made your side by side comparisons, and observed that the QPE process uses more memory than the entire Agenda software environment uses, including X11 server, toolkit, input methods, task bar, wireless LAN monitors, desktop synchronization, etc which wireless LAN monitor did you use? And why exactly did someone write a wireless LAN monitor for a platform that has no wireless lan capabilities?

The tolltech guys decided QT would make a good base for a palmtop environment. They decided, that for a palmtop the network seperation of the X11 environment was unnecessary and they could write straight on the framebuffer.

Writing direct to the frambuffer is a ligherweight solution than writing to X11 and then having an X server write to the framebuffer.

Yes you can write an X11 server that is smaller than the entire Qtopia environment, but such a comparision is irrelevant.

Yes you can make a small feature limited toolkit that writes to an X server, and create a small feature limited XServer, and create a small feature limited plamtop environment based on this, and it will be smaller than Qtopia. But would it be smaller than the same feature limited toolkit writing directly to the framebuffer? No.

Likewise you can create a large, feature rich (aka bloated) toolkit that many developers praise (QT), that writes to an X Server, and create a large, feature rich palmtop environment based on this. But would it be smaller than the same toolkit writing directly to the frambuffer (QPE)? No.

Re:here are the facts (Qt/Embedded vs. X11)

[g4dget]

Let's just cut to the chase:

Lets suppose we decided you were right, and instead of using QTEmbedded on top of the linux framebuffer, we used regular QT and stuck an X11 server inbetween QT and the linux frame buffer. You are saying this X11 solution is a ligherweight solution than QT straight on the framebuffer?

Why shouldn't it be? Why should "sticking a process inbetween" use a lot more memory? Even all things being equal, except for a process table entry and a small IPC buffer, what memory do you believe a client/server approach requires compared to a frame buffer library?

And, in fact, QPE requires multiple processes and inter-process communication just like X11--that's because, just like X11, it runs on a multitasking OS and supports multiple clients, and the clients need to coordinate window management. The only difference is that in Qt/Embedded each application writes to the frame buffer directly for low-level drawing, while in X11, drawing operations are sent as IPC messages to the window server by default (with direct rendering an option). Basically, Qt/Embedded is just like X11 using DRI for rendering.

So, come on, be specific and concrete: where exactly is the Qt/Embedded architecture supposed to save memory compared to the X11 architecture? Tell us.

Re:here are the facts (Qt/Embedded vs. X11)

[dan the person]

So, come on, be specific and concrete: where exactly is the Qt/Embedded architecture supposed to save memory compared to the X11 architecture? Tell us.

Because it writes directly to the framebuffer, instead of passing things around to someone else and asking them to write it.

Client/Server always involves more overhead. Abstracting things out into different layers always adds more overhead. It's often a good idea to do this, it gives you more flexibility, more encapsulation and thus independance. But it's still a tradeoff.

But i see your point that you can view QPE simply as QT with an X11 equivalent folded inside of it.

Re:here are the facts (Qt/Embedded vs. X11)

[g4dget]

"So, come on, be specific and concrete: where exactly is the Qt/Embedded architecture supposed to save memory compared to the X11 architecture? Tell us."
Because it writes directly to the framebuffer, instead of passing things around to someone else and asking them to write it.

Ummm--how exactly does "asking someone else" use more memory? What do you think uses that memory?

Client/Server always involves more overhead

Quite to the contrary. For example, 100 PCs running Windows require a lot more memory and CPU power to get the same work done as single server with 100 terminals.

It's similar with X11. Because it carefully separates concerns, X11 clients can be incredibly simple and lightweight (of course, Qt/X11 and Gtk+/X11 are dogs, but that's a different story). Some X11 clients run on 8bit micros and take as little as a few hundred bytes of code and data combined. Having all the graphics happen in a single process, like in X11, also makes things much smaller and simpler on the server side.

On the other hand, mapping the frame buffer and putting graphics code in every client, like Qt/Embedded does, involves a lot of overhead, duplicated data structures, and duplicated code.

Abstracting things out into different layers always adds more overhead.

Premature optimization is the root of most performance problems and bugs, and Qt/Embedded is another example of that. A good architecture beats a hack almost always.

I/O Port Serial/USB

[HamNRye]

"I/O Port Serial/USB (via docking station port, IR port)"

Hunh?? Does this mean that the serial and USV ports are available only when docked or that the IR is only available while docked??

I just want to hook up my USB Keychain Microdrive.

~Hammy

Re:I/O Port Serial/USB

[dan the person]

The zaurus has a serial port in the bottom, and an IR port on the side. You can use either of these to do serial I/O.

When you put the zaurus in the cradle the I/O port on the bottom connects into the cradle. The cradle plugs into the USB port on your computer allowing you do to I/O over USB to the zaurus when it's in the cradle (The zaurus does ethernet over usb for this). The cradle has another I/O port in the back, so you can still plugin serial devices while it's in the cradle.

HP iPaq 5450 coming soon....

[Erik_]

HP will soon announce it's new generation of HP 5000 iPaq devices (picture), also based on the Intel PXA250 XScale processor running at 400MHz. These devices come with 64Mb of RAM, Bluetooth, Wireless LAN and a Biometrics fingerprint scanner.
Some details available at Expansys.

Weighs 7.26 ounces and measures 5.43" x 3.3" x 0.63"

The iPAQ Pocket PC h5400 Series has a transflective colour TFT display (same one used in its 3900 series) capable of supporting 64K colors. It is the Pocket PC standard 320x240 pixels screen with .24 dot pitch.

Lights - Blue light for the built-in Bluetooth - Green Light for the built-in 802.11b radio when a wireless LAN connection is made (or flashing amber when there is no link).

Replaceable rechargeable battery

The H5400 has an Intel PXA250 processor running at 400MHz, and is backed by 64MB of RAM. It comes with 32MB or greater of ROM and up to 20MB of iPAQ File Store.

Nevo enables the h5400 to become an excellent Universal Remote Control for your other electronic entertainment devices. Still, the most ground-breaking new addition is the thermal swipe technology used in its fingerprint reader. HP now allows you to secure your device in a variety of ways, from a password to a PIN to a fingerprint, or any combination of the three. To use a fingerprint, you must first "enroll" your fingerprint by training the iPAQ to recognize it.

Still there...

[Myuu]

/. ate my post, so lets do this again... ...its still there, but in the cultish newton fashion...in fact, Gmate will be releasing 2 new yopys within the year (1 with and 1 without wifi) that kicks the Zaurus's arse...

I have both a Zaurus 5000 and a YDK100 and I love them both, but I much prefer the Yopy to the Zaurus...to me atleast, GTK/X ownz QTopia...as far as the body goes, however, Sharp wins, hands down...

Re:Does it run Linux?

[dan the person]

It's need to be as fast it can, I want to play a 6 hours movie compressed

If battery life is your main concern, then "as slow as it can" seems to be the best approach.

GPS?

[Ulwarth]

When can I get GPS+wireless internet in a Zaurus for live map navigation?

Re:GPS?

[monopole]

Just rig the serial cable to a NMEA GPS recievcer and use the CF for 802.11b
With a little serial cable splicing, it should be possbile to link a "smart antenna" based unit such as a pharos.
Alternately you could use a bluetooth module along with an internet access device (cell phone) and the new bluetooth enabled Emtac GPS (http://www.expansys.com/product.asp?code=CRUXIIBT GPS)

Re:Dammit dammit dammit dammit!!

[DoctorFrog]

And I ordered my ZL-5500 this frigging weekend! You bastards!!

You and me both, I haven't even recieved the damn thing yet. @#$%^&*(13)!!!!

ON the other hand, I won't wait a month or two more, I won't pay $200 more, I'm bound to find some way to rationalize why the 5500's architecture is better than the 5600's, and there's still a quarter bottle of fine Irish whiskey left in the kitchen...

Now that's peculiar...

[DoctorFrog]

In my rage and torment I went back to the site I bought my soon-to-be-delivered SL-5500 from, and it has gone UP in price by US$100! I checked other sites and while few had gone up that much, most had raised their prices, usually by about $40-50 compared to my printouts from last week. WTF?

What kind of sense does that make? Demand's liable to plummet with a new model announced, so they (several different retailers) raise the price of the older model? I'm confused! Can anybody offer me a rational (or even a marketing) explanation for this?

Last Post!

[alpg]

It's a bird..
It's a plane..
No, it's KernelMan, faster than a speeding bullet, to your rescue.
Doing new kernel versions in under 5 seconds flat..
-- Linus, in the announcement for 1.3.27

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