Slashdot Mirror
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."
millihertz? millibit? Gee, these are specs for the brain of a motorized barbie, not a pda!
correction guys, its 64MB flash, 32MB RAM.
http://www.zauruszone.com/files/sl5600pics.zip
No it runs Windows CE 2.4.18.... Maybe you should _read_ the article before posting.
http://www.sharpusa.com/products/ModelLanding/0,1
http://www.sharpusa.com/products/FunctionPressRel
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
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
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.
Ceci n'est pas une Signature !
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....
No Norm, those are your safety glasses; I'll wear my own thanks...
*cries* First my friend's video card is better then my P200, and now this?
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.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
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
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?
I do not have a signature
Etc.
That's a lot of slutts.
And the masses cried out, "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0!"
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?
"I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar."
-Hoban Washburn
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?
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?
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.
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).
GreyPoopon
--
Why is it I can write insightful comments but can't come up with a clever signature?
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 $40/month. Both do support 802.11b CF wireless cards.
Both devices lack driver support for CF cards compared to Pocket PC devices.
Hmmm looks like I just did a comparision of the two products.
In my opinion either one is great. It just depends on what you want to do. If either one offered a good wireless solution I would have gone with it over my Ipaq. God pocket pc 2002 sucks!
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.
I own a Palm Vx and a Z5500 and I haven't touched my palm since then. Looking back at my palm, I wonder "how could it ever be sold??". The palm is sooo limited in functionality compared to the Zaurus. First of all, you get a shell, which is (to me) worth every penny of the Zaurus. It allows you to do whatever you want and tweak everything in the OS. OpenZaurus allows you to go a step beyond by installing what you want and freeing up some valuable memory.
:)
The *only* disadvantage I found so far is battery life. With a wireless CF card, you can use it for about 1 - 1.5 hours. Now that's bad. Of course, new 802.11b CF cards (type 2) are out and use less power, but I don't feel like shelling another 80$.
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.
-- Leeeter than leet
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