Sharp Ships Zaurus SL-5600; 5500 Available Cheap

Bill Kendrick writes "LinuxDevices is reporting the good news: Sharp is now shipping the Zaurus SL-5600 Linux-based PDA. Compared to the SL-5500 that's been out for the past year, this new model sports a 400MHz X-Scale CPU, twice the Flash (32MB), twice the RAM (64MB) a much better battery (1700 mAh), and a real speaker and mic. Learn more at Sharp's website." And IceFox writes "Well I wasn't expecting this to happen till next week, but I guess it was put up early. For a limited time on hsn.com you can get a Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 PDA for $198.92, combined with a hsn.com coupon you can bring the price down to $169.08. For anyone who has wanted to play with this Linux PDA here is your chance to get it for very cheap." Update: 03/18 02:03 GMT by T : Reader Brendan Hoar corrects the listed specs: "The specs for the SL-5600 are incorrect. It should be 64MB of flash, 32MB of SDRAM. It's technically *half* the RAM of the SL-5500, not twice the RAM." Thanks.

Comments

I dont get it

[odyrithm]

32meg? Ive got 512meg on my keychain device, after ripping it apart the chips really would'nt take up much room in a pda.. I guess its a cost thing.. but I'm sure it wouldnt cost much to expand to 256/512..

please enlighten me someone.

Re:I dont get it

[Aliencow]

Well, 5$ more of hardware means they will sell it for 200$ more... which is ridiculous, but that's the business. The new E750 by toshiba has 96megs though... Not much more, but getting better!

Re:I dont get it

[goosman]

32meg will get a lot of folks by, plus you've got to sell lots of overpriced accessories such as RAM upgrades.

I think wireless should be standard in these and dump the IR. Who uses that thing? Oh, except to control your TV.

Re:I dont get it

[TooTechy]

Might be physical size. Might be cost. Might be the power required to keep all those little transistors juiced up ;-)

Re:I dont get it

[cdrudge]

I beleive the Flash is for the OS and the apps that come with it. Just pop in a CF card and use that as the "hard drive". It probably is a cost thing. People don't want to pay the extra money when many/most won't use it. I wouldn't be supprised if 50% of PDA owners never add additional software and of the other 50%, half wouldn't have a use/need for more then 32 megs.

Re:I dont get it

[odyrithm]

200$ more really would'nt be that *bad*, aslong as they dish'ed them out in the two different types.. one(32meg) for the normal end user that needs an address book, and another(512meg) for more upstream users(developers say) that need the space to shift work around and work on the run with.

Re:I dont get it

[odyrithm]

I totaly agree with you when it comes to 802.11b, but wireless electronics suck up allot of juice... or do they? from what Ive seen with my libretto 50ct they can half the battery life and always get extremly hot(another factor to why there not intergrated into pda's?)..

Re:I dont get it

[UselessTrivia]

IR is good for linking to your phone as well. Bluetooth would be better, but IR is a good old standby.

Re:I dont get it

[Falsch Freiheit]

It's called "power consumption".

Memory on embedded devices is kept low, yes, partially because RAM costs $$, but more because RAM costs watts, and watts cost time (as in, less run-time) or weight+size (as in a bigger battery).

Often the type of RAM that uses less power is also bigger and more expensive than high-power-use cheap ram.

Your keychain device can afford the power-consumption, which comes from the wall where power is cheap. Also, your keychain device can go head and use that power-sucking RAM, 'cause it's got access to that wall-socket.

Re:I dont get it

[bstadil]

Just pop in a CF card and use that as the "hard drive"

Use CF for stoarage yes, but you need the SD card for running (most) programs. Installing a program to the CF card will in most cases not work. For Swap you can use SD but there is a speed / number of Writes penalty.

Build in memory vs expansion options almost always comes out favoring expansions. The reason is the volatility and the machanics of the memory market. Most producers can not compete on memory procurement. Reason is the much longer cycle time of finished products (from initial production thru product in users hand) vs memory modules. Plus potential form factor issues, In addition there is the risk factor that the PDA producer rather not take. Risk is expensive even though you win once in a while. That being said I love my Zaurus

Re:I dont get it

[mivok]

From what I've seen, the 5600 is very similar to the 5500, which has both sd/mmc and cf slots. The first thing I bought with my 5500 was a 256MB cf card and 128MB sd, storing programs on the sd card and mp3s (well oggs) on the compact flash, which I could remove and replace with the ethernet card when needed net access.

The real crippling factor is that in the 5500, the memory was all SDRAM which meant that you could flash with a different rom (openzaurus maybe) and have the full 64MB of main memory for loaded program use, and the SD card for storage. With the 5600 its 32MB SDRAM and 32MB flash, which sort of kills this idea. And if you ever want to run more than one app on the pda with 32MB, you quickly run out of memory.

The improvement in battery life is the only reason I would want to upgrade to a 5600, but even then you can get battery packs for the 5500, and its a LOT cheaper. (I paid £300 in january and its gone down to approx £200, probably even less now :( )

Re:I dont get it

[Anonymous Coward]

format your CF as ext2 instead of FAT and you can run programs there too.

Re:I dont get it

[dnoyeb]

RAM requires power to retain its state.

Re:I dont get it

[quick_dry_3]

doesn't using memory cards for swap space kill performance? the memory card I/O is slowww, not to mention that with limited number of write ops on memory cards it'd kill them fairly quickly if it saw heavy use.

Re:I dont get it

[bstadil]

Yes, but you need to change most programs and recompile. Installing on CF cards will cause most unmodified programs to assume that common libaries is on the CF card. Not a big deal but not for the "Click and Run" crowd.

Re:I dont get it

[bstadil]

We are talking $20 or so for a 64Meg SD card so life (over a year) is not really an issue. Not sure about performance.

Re:I dont get it

[belroth]

Minor nit-pick, the Sharp site gives the memory as 32Mb SDRAM and 64Mb Flash.

Re:I dont get it

[mivok]

Yeah, spotted it after I posted, but it still doesnt make up for (imho) halving the amount of sdram (even if it wasnt usable in the default sharp rom)

Re:I dont get it

[SN74S181]

Umm, life matters if it's going to fail during use, which presumably would be the case.

Re:I dont get it

[evilviper]

Call me crazy, but it doesn't seem like they really have all that much interest in power. 1700 mAh? You can get more than that in a single rechargeable AA battery.

Besides, I can't imagine that extra memory causes that much power drain (what special type of memory are they using?). The drain from the LCD is probably so high that they wouldn't notice the difference in power consumption.

Re:I dont get it

[theLOUDroom]

Use CF for stoarage yes, but you need the SD card for running (most) programs. Installing a program to the CF card will in most cases not work. For Swap you can use SD but there is a speed / number of Writes penalty.

This is just blatantly wrong.

I have an SL-5500. You don't HAVE to have either card to install apps. You can install to SD or CF and either one is going to work as well (although CF is faster).

You do not need an SD card just to be able to run must programs. The only program I need an SD card to run is X and I still don't need to create a swapfile. If I wanted to I could have put X on a CF card instead, there is not problem doing that.

Re:I dont get it

[ichimunki]

Limited number of write ops on memory cards? Please elaborate. I'm not trying to cast aspersion on your assertion, I'm just curious what you mean... especially since those things ain't the cheapest storage medium on the market.

Re:I dont get it

[OrangeTide]

you get both an SD/MMC slot and CF slot. You can just put a microdrive on there and have 2Gb. .. the 64Mb of flash you get on the Zaurus is actually a lot since the executables are pretty small and most of the data you keep is pretty small.

Things that will eat up your memory is if you use your Zaurus for an mp3 player (battery life is a bit short for this). Or if you want to watch movies at 320x200 resolution (YECK!).

Re:I dont get it

[quick_dry_3]

The type of memory used in these solid state cards has a limited lifetime. In general use its probably not something you would ever worry about - its more likely that you'll have switched to some newer, larger, better memory card/type well before reaching the end of the cards lifetime.

Flash memory can only sustain a certain number of write operations on each section of memory, so, after it has reached its limit, it will go bad - different quality cards have different lifetimes. Consumer cards have a lower lifetime, industrial cards have a longer lifetime - and a much higher cost.

This is a problem people encounter when running linux on a flash card, unless they'd setup ramdisks to be used for swap, and temp files, they would quickly rip through the cards lifetime. There are a few special filesystems specially developed for use with flash memory - one is used in the AXIS network cameras.

Re:I dont get it

[Minna Kirai]

Yes, but you need to change most programs and recompile.

Recompile?? Whatever for?

Firstly, most program executables are small enough to install on the actual device without a problem. Users will normally prefer to have applications on permanent storage ("the hard drive") and documents on removable media.

Installing on CF cards will cause most unmodified programs to assume that common libaries is on the CF card.

Why would this be the case? Most Linux applications needing external libraries will check an environment variable to find where they are (in case there's any doubt). Or if it still can't cope, just make a symbolic link to the actual library from wherever the program is looking. (Although most people wouldn't like to reformat CF cards from FAT into filesystems that support symlinks, this is an option)

Recompiling a program just to change library postions sounds like an extreme solution.

Re:I dont get it

[Minna Kirai]

Flash memory is what's being discussed here, not traditional "RAM". Data on flash can survive without any electricity at all.

So if the storage were used like a hard drive (programs and data are loaded from it into normal RAM, rather than being utilized in place), then it could be powered off except during the very brief periods of use.

I don't know if existing PDAs cut power to external flash cards when it's not being accessed- however, experience tells that adding a 256 meg card doesn't cut down the battery life very perceptibly.

Most likely, the designers left bigger storage out of PDAs for other reasons:
1. More flexibility for customers- they can buy the big storage if they want, but most don't need it.
2. More flexibility for users- they can yank out expansion cards and swap them with other devices (cameras, desktop PCs, other PDAs)
3. Keep the opportunity to introduce a better device next year for $250 more.

When is the C700 coming out

[Bytal]

Heard that the C700 was coming in late 2003 to North America. At least thats what techtv said at some point in January.

Re:When is the C700 coming out

[IceFox]

Hmm I work for Sharp so I would know better then most.... FYI though the C700 is a Sharp Japan line product. Same with the B5 and A3.

Re:When is the C700 coming out

[Cyn]

it comes to America when you get the balls to pay someone to buy one and send it to you :)

alternatively, you can use a company like dynamism.com to get one - they actually don't mark it up much at all considering it comes with 1yr warranty and modifications to english

Re:When is the C700 coming out

[Bytal]

The markup is around $200US considering that it costs an equivalent of ~$460 in Japan and $700 from dynamism. The modification to Enlish doesn't matter if you plan on running OpenZaurus and if you don't for most Qtopia applications there's one file to change in the home dir. The one year warranty is great but not for $200. Now I'm not knocking on Dynamism which does bring a lot of technology from overseas that US buyers wouldn't have access to otherwise, but for this particular product I'd rather wait for a US release. Or maybe get a Japanese friend to plan a trip back home:)

Re:When is the C700 coming out

[cascadefx]

Why wouldn't they release this version in the US?

I am sure there is a dollars and sense reason, but it would seem that blackberry's (among others) would hint at this PDA being a success.

I could be wrong. Since you work for sharp, what gives?

Also, given the difference in the specs, would you hold out for the new zaurus or buy a deeply discounted SL-5500? I am thinking about buying one, but was hoping the price for the new ones would be around $400 considering the cost of add on cards and such. Also, if the SL-C700 does come out in the states, do you see a similar price drop in the SL-5600?

Thanks for any insight you might be able to provide.

Re:When is the C700 coming out

[Than_Not_Then]

Hmm I work for Sharp so I would know better then most

Better THAN most, you dolt!

Re:When is the C700 coming out

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh so you're the one cleaning up that shite in the toilets ? Return over there, sucker !

Re:When is the C700 coming out

[Anonymous Coward]

Even more important is that the English conversion is free. You don't have to go through dynamism to get it. The only thing you are paying for is the import, having someone else convert it for you, and the main thing: support and warranty of a converted product.

Wonderful Tool

[Oriumpor]

The sharp zaurus is one of the best tools ever. I have used it in many different situations where before I would have had to grab my laptop. Using Minicom I have programmed routers with the nifty serial cable. I have spent many hours playing Dopewars and Wyvern (a pretty nifty graphical mud). The sharp image comes with Opera and is readable even at the furthest zoom (-4 or something.) My options are NOT restricted by sharp, there is even OpenZaurus (or OZ as the Z junkies call it.) The walkthroughs on the pages are mostly made for Linux noobs.

It runs Kismet (with the special socket drivers I can run low power for about 2 hours.) The software library is always growing, and the developers are happy to share their techniques for cross compiling/QT developing.

The wonderful thing about the Zaurus, is people already have developed and even COMPILED programs for the arm that run just fine on the Z, (mostly Ipaq/other linux SA device developers) but that means an even BIGGER software library.

The community is so helpful, you may be asking questions in the #zaurus channel in irc.openprojects.org and the person answering your question, just might have been the one developing the program you are asking about. It is not infrequent to hear "#Zaurus:So_and_so Yeah here that version is kinda buggy, I just compiled the new one here."

I have to mention Zauruszone even though it is no where near the community it used to be, there still are useful links

Re:Wonderful Tool

[IceFox]

Don't forget the Howtos at docs.zaurus.com. I try to get as much up there documentation wise to help everyone.

Re:Wonderful Tool

[bertilow]

Can this Zaurus do Unicode (and other character encodings)? Or is this a strictly western language device? Can you redefine the keyboard to enter characters for different languages? Can you read e-mail and edit text in Unicode (UTF-8)?

Re:Wonderful Tool

[Cyn]

it's linux dude, you can alter it to your hearts content pretty much... adding other character encodings is merely a limitation of space and the program you wish to use.

I'll know more when my sl-c700 arrives and I flash it with openzaurus... with any luck it'll have a gui for the c700 in 2 weeks when I get it.

Re:Wonderful Tool

[bertilow]

adding other character encodings is merely a limitation of space and the program you wish to use

Does that mean that out-of-the-box you can only do western languages (Latin 1)?

Which of the shipping programs would be able to do Unicode if I "added the encoding" (whatever that would mean)?

Re:Wonderful Tool

[pantherace]

Yes, the Z can do UTF-8, in fact for people who use other languages with different symbol sets, there can be other 'handwriting recognition software, for example nunome for japanese, I believe there are input methods for chinese and korean (and likely others, but I don't know of them) (both sharp and oz roms) Remapping the keyboard would be likely done via an opie-input-method, but I don't know if anyone has written one like that already.

One of the reasons is that it is Qt, which always supports Unicode, afaik.

Re:Wonderful Tool

[pantherace]

out of the box, it doesn't have unicode font, as I recall. (well, it has unicode support, but no font to display it in)

So, yes it needs one package: You need to grab the unicode font.

I believe that I didn't have a problem with any of them after installing the unicode font on the sharp rom, however I don't use it anymore, so i can't test and tell you.

Re:Wonderful Tool

[dr_dank]

I've also found the Unoffical Zaurus FAQ to be extremely helpful as well.

Re:Wonderful Tool

[mivok]

Theres also The zaurus DevNet forums geared mostly towards developers, but still very useful.

Re:Wonderful Tool

[mskeggs]

There is a very active mailing list community for support on Yahoo groups and (at the moment) on Sourceforge.
The device is just great. The keyboard is superb for bashing out the kind of text I do most often, an email, memo or note. I can even write a novel, bit by bit, although it is impractical for cramming an essay in a limited time. It FTPs straight to my desk, or just send a file as an email attachment for super simple file transport.
The email client is good for reading short messages on the bus (like list traffic) and even supports IMAP if you want to easily keep your mail syncronised between your desk and PDA.
WiFi is fun, and great for quick fact checking, or installing software with a couple of clicks.
Battery life is a trade off. With low backlight it goes for a long time, but only an hour or so at full brightness.
I can honestly say this device can replace a laptop for me when out and about, even though the PIM integration isn't as smooth as a Palm. It can just do so much more...

Media Player

[IceFox]

With this price there is something that I have wanted to do with the Zaurus for a really long time. Turn it into a media player. For $600 or some insane price you can get one of those media players with the 2 line text lcd. Pick up one of these connect it to the network, power, and receiver. Then write a little app to play audio files over the network onto your stereo. You get a COLOR 320x240 lcd TOUCH screen. I don't think that there is any media center that has that for this cheap. With the touch screen there is all sorts of extra goodies that you could put on it to make managing the music easier. Heck you could just run apache on it and browse to it from any computer and all it would do is display the current song and cool swirly plugins. Put some cool visual plugins on it, duck tape it to your stereo rack (or make a nice case, whatever suits you) and enjoy.

Re:Media Player

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could eBay for a hp de100c. I got one for 200 bucks. It has a 4 line LCD, plus it pipes X-Windows to my TV.

Re:Media Player

[Darlock]

If you have a PS2 you could use QCast (http://www.broadq.com). Win a PS2 NIC and a local network you can stream music (mp3, OOG) + videos (mpeg2, DivX) and pictures.

It's a good little company that is constantly fixing bugs and adding new codecs to their lineup. Pretty rare for a company these days.

Re:Media Player

[Anonymous Coward]

OGG is a file format. OOG is a caveman.

Re:Media Player

[AsOldAsFortran]

One of our students does exactly this, apache and all. Has the wireless card in, so he can control the pc audio from anywhere on campus. You get a touch screen control that roams. Freaks out his roommate when he sets the music before he arrives at the door.

Re:Media Player

[Anonymous Coward]

> duck tape it to your stereo rack

... as long as there's duck tape in the stores . Maybe that's why Bush wanted everyone to buy duck tape, so that noone was left without his/her Zaurus duck taped to the stereo rack.

Cool but...

[WegianWarrior]

...as my palm130 (http://www.palm.com/products/palmm130/ )do all that I want, I won't switch; Linux or no Linux.

After all, as far as I can see, the only benefit this device offers is Linux; everything else has been done before either by Palm or bysome PocketPC (allthought I would never get one of those myself, for the same reason).

Re:Cool but...

[meldon corintur]

After all, as far as I can see, the only benefit this device offers is Linux...

Actually, no. It is also the only device with a thumb keyboard under a slide out cover. I don't have a Zaurus but I have heard that the keyboard it actually really easy and quick to use.

Re:Cool but...

[pantherace]

It is.

In regards to the grandparent post: It may have been done before, BUT I was looking at a handheld computing magazine of some sort, and looking through all the stuff they are going essentially 'wow! cool!' about and in my head running through a checklist of done it, know someone who has done it. And frankly there was nothing new.

Oh yeah, did I mention how it was all done with free/open-source software? (minor point here-I kept opera around, because at this point it is better than konqueror embedded, due to opera's better small screen rendering.)

so...

[Anonymous Coward]

let's say I bought one of these. what do I do with it? I have Mac, Linux, BSD machines only, no Windows in sight.. will I be able to play with it at all or is Win req'd?

Re:so...

[JCholewa]

> let's say I bought one of these. what do I do with it? I
> have Mac, Linux, BSD machines only, no Windows in sight..
> will I be able to play with it at all or is Win req'd?

I can't help you with syncing (since I don't do that), but for all other types of access, the Zaurus is unbeatable in connecting to a Linux desktop.

The connection is IP over USB. So you can set up an ftp server, or an ssh server (I use scp to transfer files) on the Z. You could probably set up a samba (Windows SMB) share or something similar and mount the Zaurus's filesystem from your desktop. You could run apache on your Zaurus and communicate like that.

It's practically trivial. In comparison, hotsync is like pulling out your hair.

The initial setup might be hard. It took me a little bit of work to get the IP over USB working on Mandrake 8, but I am a newbie at all this, so you'd likely have better luck.

-JC

Re:so...

[drw]

Windows is definitely not required. For syncing with a desktop, there is TrollTech's QtopiaDesktop. But even better for KDE users out there is KitchenSync which allows syncing with KDE's addressbook and KOrganizer, and future goal of Evolution support. If you hunt around some, there are various scripts to sync/parse the information on other systems (OS X).

Dan

Re:so...

[irix]

and future goal of Evolution support

For GNOME users, you can check out multisync.

It already talks to Evolution, and I am working on an Opie/Zaurus plugin right now. The version in CVS is already partially working - hopefully within a few weeks it will be useable for everyday synching.

FYI: Rdesktop port...

[Anonymous Coward]

on the devel list there is a port of rdesktop to the sharp zaurus...

No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[xZAQx]

From the hsn page, under "requirements:"

"Microsoft Windows 98/98SE/2000 Professional/ME/XP"

So, then, Linux is a good enough platform for developing the thing on, and running the handheld software, but Sharp can't write desktop apps for us to synchronize it?
I'm sure it's very easy to set it up to synchronize with Evolution or whatever-else-you-want, but, seriously, why doesn't Sharp at least tout that it runs Linux as a marketing strategy?

I don't understand, someone please enlighten me.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[Anonymous Coward]

Desktop apps for Linux are available (and usually more reliable), but they are brought to you by trolltech (Qtopia Desktop) and available through Sharp's website.

I actually like Qtopia Desktop better than Intellisync. Intellisync tends to freeze up windows if anything unusual happens with the transfer--never had that happen with Qtopia Desktop, even in windows.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[Oriumpor]

This is not a restriction at all, you can synchronize with evolution and the source is open. So if the need is there, and the want is strong enough your favorite Linux mail client can synch with your Z.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[chayim]

I'm not sure why the website says that. I've happily used my SL5000d (that's right the developer model 5500) with Linux and only Linux. I sync using qtopia (when I care). I transfer files to my Z using either 802.11, usb, or the cf card. You do not need windows to use this puppy.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[xZAQx]

Linux has become "absolute?"
You mean "obselete," I take it, which, by the way, is an unfounded and unsupported argument. Besides your obvious ignorance (and trolling), you've completely missed my point. I'm just wondering why Sharp wouldn't at least tout the fact that it runs on Linux as a selling point.

Same thing with TiVo. What's the purpose for excluding it from their advertisements? It may not help their sales, but neither can I see it hurting them. Why not give a little free publicity?
IMO, it's the least these companies can do; they used a free product, which enabled them to make a better product. At least give credit where credit is due.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah..i ment obselete..sorry for my BAD english. I was really joking around. I also found it hard to believe that Sharp does not even deliver agood sync. software with its Z. and i imagined how their thoughts would be like...

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[Anonymous Coward]

seeing as how windows XP has had very low sales, it doesnt have that much desktop share either. windows 95 probably still has a larger share.

greatest at what?
funding stupid trolls, oh yeah

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[Hatechall]

its 2000/NT, XP, 98/ME, 95.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[SquadBoy]

The website says that because the cd that ships with the unit wants that. They have to make sure that someone with 95 does not buy it and bitch. If you want Linux stuff do the research it is out there.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[RobotRunAmok]

Same thing with TiVo. What's the purpose for excluding it from their advertisements?

Probably because the target audience for TiVos are humans. Seriously, Dude, we're "Geeks," and just _some_ of us care about a device's OS. Sure, it would be great from a Linux Evangelist's perspective for every mainstream thingamabob running Linux to promote such, but I can just as easily see the Marketing Guy saying, "Look, can we ose-lay the Inux-Lay references, it makes it sound too geeky." Perfectly reasonable, given these companies' goal is to sell widgets, not push Linux.

Mickey D's doesn't tout what brand of vegetable oil it uses on its fries, Chyrsler doesn't promote the brand of spark plugs they use, Tommy Hilfiger doesn't waste copy space telling people where he buys his textiles. A Broadway show puts its actors names up in lights, not those of its stage crew.

Which brings us back to Sharp and the Zaurus. The guys who use and compile Linux already _know_ the Zaurus runs on it. We're already on the team, have done the research. It's a given. Sharp is out there competing with the Palm and PocketPC crowd, and the LAST thing they want to do is muddy the comparison waters with even a whiff of OS incompatibility.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[fiber_halo]

Have you bought any sort of electronic/AV equipment recently? Or not recently... it really doesn't matter.

• 3 line digital comb filter
  
• 20Hz - 20kHz bandwidth
  
• 94 dB SNR
  
• Advanced velocity scan modulation
  
• Reflective TFT LCD
  

You think "normal" people know what any of these things really are? Why not:

• Runs Linux
  
• kernel version 2.4.18
  
• etc...

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[RobotRunAmok]

Screen type, signal-to-noise ration, etc. are relevant in the purchase of AV equipment. They represent objective, measurable criteria.

The unit's OS, and -- Dear God in His Heaven! -- its kernel version, lack that relevance. In the marketing of a PDA, where it might easily cause confusion over the unit's synching capability with some (vastly) more popular consumer desktop OS's, it's poison.

You and I, for whom this kind of stuff is of interest, can find out the answers to our questions easily enough without frightening the newbs off.

It's an Operating System, not a Religion, and when you preach to the choir, you risk boring the sinners.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[xZAQx]

You raise a good point, but what I was thinking was along the lines of the fact that, true, as you pointed out, most people don't know what any of the technical data are, so, they gloss over them. If one particular piece of informatoin piques their interest, then, fine. What I was envisioning, I suppose, is a somewhat non-technically-savvy person browsing for PDAs, sees this Z, and thinks to himself, "'Runs Linux'? Where have I heard that word before? What's Linux?"

There is no such thing as bad press.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[RobotRunAmok]

"'Runs Linux'? Where have I heard that word before? What's Linux?"

"...isn't that the system that doean't work with Windows, or something like that? Well, I have a Windows PC... hmmm, better take another look at these pocketPC's..."

Where Linux needs the mention is NOT on the embedded hardware, but on the sides of the boxes of software. Joe Sixpack needs to be able to walk into WalMart and see the Linux name on the compatibilities list of the mass-appeal home design, graphics, and pre-school apps.

Of course, that's a whole 'nother topic.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[WindBourne]

What's the purpose for excluding it from their advertisements?
Less than 6 months ago, MS was running around knocking Linux. For all the fans of Linux, MS has tried to create 2-3 x that number who hate it. They would not buy it if they knew. Also, these companies are trying to build product loyality. If they push Linux and then later switch to MS, it could backfire. Grat examples of this is that other than computers, nothing with MS sticker (and not from MS) has sold well.

Re:No Linux Desktop Apps to go along?

[stonecypher]

> > Same thing with TiVo. What's the purpose for
> > excluding it from their advertisements?
>
> Probably because the target audience for TiVos
> are humans. Seriously, Dude, we're "Geeks," and
> just _some_ of us care about a device's OS.

Nonono. He meant, "why won't sharp say that they have sync stuff for linux?" And it's perfectly reasonable, because they mention the other platforms they can sync to. Why not just add it at the end of the list?

For a PDA which has Linux as one of its *selling* points, I think you underestimate the interested portion of their ownership populace.

Dare I?

[Gortbusters.org]

I had jumped at the Agenda PDA, shortly after purchasing my original Palm III. I wasn't too impressed with it and it soon became a dust-collection device in my closet.

Not having a PDA for the past couple years was OK, but then recently I decided to move back to electronic organization of my schedule. In this case, I was looking for features to convince me not to bust out the old Palm3. How does this compete with the new Sony CLIEs or the WindowsCE products?

Re:Dare I?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you want a PDA, the old Palm machines can't be beat. The Zaurus and Wince machines are totally inadequate because of the battery issue. I'm serious: a 5 year old Palm wipes the floor with any of the "modern" products as a PDA.

If you want a portable personal computer, though, the Zaurus is pretty fucking cool. Just remember: it's a PC, not a PDA.

Re:Dare I?

[Oriumpor]

It has a thumb keyboard (really the only way to use it efficiently.) Runs Linux, can run GCC, can be used to program routers with a 15 dollar cable. Has a SD slot and a CF slot, can run a swap file on either memory storage unit, so real memory is not quite so big a deal.

It's cheaper than any comporable device, has a screen which is backlit, and readable in the sunlight, has a software library with hundreds of titles.

It can run kismet, it has a wireless internet service (not WIFI but CDPD or some hybrid.) The battery is replaceable so you can carry 3-4 LIon batteries with you on a long flight (although expensive but worth it in my eyes). Flite is precompiled to run on the SA and can be used to read books/trigger events via your WIFI card/CF storage whatever.

Lets put it this way, if you like to play with your PDA, get a Zaurus and best of all it fits in your pocket.

Re:Dare I?

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a Zaurus 5500 when I could get it for $300, and I have used it more than any other PDA I've had (I had a couple of black and white PDAs).

The reasons are mainly two: First, I can browse the web and check my email wirelessly. Second, I don't have to replace batteries. Replacing batteries every couple of months on my old PDA made it useless after a while, and rechargables lasted a much shorter time.

Also, it doesn't hurt that I can play DOOM, open up yacas, and view a powerpoint presentation on the thing.

Re:Dare I?

[pHDNgell]

Don't forget palm's offerings here. My Tungsten T's got some decent abilities.

The web browser it comes with is pretty good combined with either my phone or my powerbook for IP connectivity.

I've yet to use the voice recorder, but I've got a couple of MP3 players that do a decent job. I still carry my iPod around, though (besides having a lot more storage, it's my #1 backup device for the home databases).

I've got several books on there, as well as pictures of the wife and kids.

When I get bored, I do development on it (have a decent editor, scheme development kit, C compiler, pascal compiler, resource editor, stuff like that).

The IMAP reader is quite a bit better than the one that came with my phone (t68i).

Of course, it keeps yet another copy of my phone book database and calendars.

Actually, I have to say the calendar syncing is a bit annoying. Every time I have a meeting or something, I get little windows popping up on my powerbook, noise coming out of the powerbook, noise coming out of the palm, noise coming out of the phone, and noise coming out if the iPod. It makes it really hard to come up with excuses for missing a meeting.

Re:Dare I?

[SomeoneGotMyNick]

I run Apache/PHP/MySQL on my Zaurus. I use it to demo websites I create without needing an Internet connection. I just go wireless, or drop the Zaurus in the cradle connected to my laptop and it acts as a tiny server (and a fast one at that).

Re:Dare I?

[Ilan Volow]

The UI for the zaurus is very badly designed. The people at Trolltech really didn't think about many of the human factors issues involved in hand-held computing. The result feels like a full-size desktop PC interface artificially shrunkend into a 3x5" mobile device.

Contrast this with palm, where things like minimizing the number of taps needed to perform a task was actually taken into consideration.

While I find writing GUI apps in python and running them on the Zaurus cool and useful for specific applications, I would absolutely never use it for a PDA in situations where I had only 10 seconds to get down a cute girl's phone number.

Re:Dare I?

[RevAaron]

When discussing the Zaurus in relation to WinCE, a lot of people go on about features they see as novel to a Linux PDA.

I'm a big PDA nerd. I'm working on my own PDA OS/computing environment. And I've done a lot of comparisons between WinCE, Palm OS, Newton OS, and Linux.

Linux on the PDA can do a lot of slick things- run Apache, Emacs, Vi, Perl, Python, SSH, VNC and X11. WinCE can do that as well. There is an XFree port, multiple SSH clients (Free, free and commercial), etc. You can tunnel X11 over SSH on a WinCE machine. You can use a serial cable to adminster router with a terminal emulator. Some of these things are of questionable usefulness for some people, but it is possible all the same.

I've heard way too many people go on and on about how their Linux PDAs can do these things as an advantage over WinCE PDAs. Linux PDAs may have their advantages (moral advantage?), but running a handful of useful Unix-ey tools isn't one of them.

Check out Rainer's page for a lot of useful WinCE ports.

I cannot say the same for Palm OS, however. PalmOS is relatively primitive (internally) compared to WinCE and Linux/PDA, which are both full-blown, relatively modern operating systems that run on PDAs. Some of these things work on Palm OS devices, SSH for instance, but X11, Emacs most likely do not.

I'm *really* tempted to buy this Zaurus- seems like a good deal. But the same thing as ever is holding me back- Linux PDAs have no real handwriting recognition system, like the HWR on the Newton OS or CalliGrapher for Windows CE. I use it quite a bit for taking notes- taking bitmap notes doesn't compare in their usefulness to real text notes. The thumboard wouldn't cut it for taking college lecture notes for me, and the character recognition wouldn't either.

Other than HWR, I have still stuck to using WinCE and the Newton OS as my PDA platforms. The available software for WinCE is generally of a higher quality than you can get for Linux PDAs. Like on desktop Windows, there is a lot of trashy software, however, but the good stuff is pretty good, better than most of what you can get for Linux PDAs, commercial or not.

That isn't to say that all Linux PDA software sucks, or that you can't get a decent package here or there- on the contrary. The Hancom Office apps are pretty nice. However, Linux PDA apps are all too often like their desktop Linux apps- messy UI wise. Especially the Free and free apps. The commercial QTopia shops put a bit more thought into their apps, which is good.

If you like what is available enough, and think the moral advantage of Linux instead of WinCE

I've wanted a Linux PDA for quite some time. I did something similar to you, I bought a Helio for running Linux. Similar specs as an Agenda (75 MHz MIPS, 2 MB Flash ROM, 8 MB RAM, serial, 160x160 B&W screen). Linux was ported, so was PicoGUI, but in the end, it does just about as much as an Agenda does. Maybe a little more- the open-source default VT-OS is still pretty useful. After that, I got an iPAQ 3100 for developing Dynapad, and tried running Familiar and then QTopia on it during a couple months in the summer. Went back to WinCE after that,

I also run Squeak on it, and can use it for programming. But generally, it's a toy compared to my Newton 2100 or my Jornada 720.

That said, use whatever you like. I'm not a "WinCE evangelist," but thus far, I've preferred using it over Linux on a PDA. I don't even use Windows on the desktop (or server), but I'm a big proponent of using the best tool for the job.

Re:Dare I?

[RevAaron]

Not all WinCE machines have a sucky battery life. I don't know of any PocketPCs that have a greyscale screen other than the iPAQ 31xx series, but they get pretty darn good battery life.

It may not be the month on a couple batteries my gf's Palm Pro got, but it's a helluva lot more than the 3 hours you get on most WinCE/Zaurus devices. Taking class notes (1-4 hours every weekday) and reading stuff while waiting for the bus, I got 2 weeks or more on a charge. And I use my PDA a lot, probably more than most. I should've done a test to see how long it went doing the stuff most Palm people are confined to- scheduling, contacts and playing solitaire. Even if you're not a fan of M$, one must admit that battery life on a WinCE device isn't bad when it doesn't have a big, bright color screen.

You also get decent battery life without having to put up with something as old as a Palm Pro/III. If you're just going to do basic organization, an old Palm os certainly good enough... but with the iPAQ 31xx, you can do a lot more. The iPAQ 31xxs have the same 206 MHz processor, 16 MB of RAM and a screen that is 320x240 (more than twice as large as a piddly 160x160 palm screen). Listen to MP3s, see webpages rendered half-decently, emulate a lot of old game systems, read PDFs, SSH/VNC/X11R6/Emacs/Vi (no joke), among many other things, some useful and some of a questionable value.

Unlike the Palm Pro, it can be used as a portable personal computer. And unlike the Zaurus, it is useful as a PDA.

Hell, if we're talking about old stuff- a 5 year old Newton 2x00 wipes the floor with Palm, WinCE, and Linux PDAs as a PDA as well as a handheld computer.

Re:Dare I?

[thynk]

I can speak for the battery life on two models, the Amigo C600 get's about... 3 or so hours of use with the 802.11b enabled. This is with the 1400mAh battery.

The battery life studies I've done at work with the Dell Axims show about 11.5 hours of straight use with the 802.11b enabled on the standard battery, and 22+ hours on the 3400mAh battery. Both tests ended when the PDA announced that it was low on power @ ~20% life.

The @migo is a bulky beast, but with the PCMCIA slot built in. The Dell's are a lot trimmer, tho still a lot bigger than some of the models I've seen.

Maybe this will help in your search?

Re:Dare I?

[Anonymous Coward]

Where do you get its serial cable for $15?

Re:Dare I?

[Anonymous Coward]

Instead of 3-4 batteries at $50 a pop try a Datanation iPowerPak which takes 4 AA batteries a snip at $20. Works fine on my Zaurus with NiMH and Alkaline batteries.

moylan

CORRECTION: 32MB RAM (SDRAM) and 64MB Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

The 5500 has 64MB of RAM (but half was reserved for file storage) and 16MB of read-only flash.

The 5600 has 32MB of RAM (giving it the same working memory in the standard configuration) and 64MB of read-write flash (giving it slightly more storage space).

So, there isn't really any more RAM for applications in the SL-5600.

Re:CORRECTION: 32MB RAM (SDRAM) and 64MB Flash

[gearheadsmp]

Actually, there's less. With the Crow Rom or OpenZaurus, you can get different Kernels that let you use your ram as swap/application: 64/0, 48/16, etc.

Re:CORRECTION: 32MB RAM (SDRAM) and 64MB Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

do you think OZ can let the sl-5600 do something like 80/12 or 96/0?

Re:CORRECTION: 32MB RAM (SDRAM) and 64MB Flash

[gearheadsmp]

Unfortunately, the SL-5600 has only 32mb of RAM to begin with. Unless you have an IBM Microdrive, or something like it to use as swap, you're kind of caught between a rock and a hard place. Makes me wish they made SRAM cards for CompactFlash.

Phone home?

[famebait]

Hmmm.

• Real speaker and mike
• Room for wireless card
• Running linux

Sounds like the open-source VOIPs are finally in for some serious usage.

I guess batterly life (while using wifi) will still be pretty bad compared to a moderm mobile, but for international calls it would still be a godsend; I just spent a fortune calling to Europe from the GDC.

Re:Phone home?

[pantherace]

Yep, the 5500 can do it (if having a mic/headphone). Check out zmeeting. (h263 (or whaever thoe 3 numbers are that is used in gnomemeeting, and netmeeting, etc)

Re:Phone home?

[Bill Kendrick]

Sounds like the open-source VOIPs are finally in for some serious usage.

Might I point your attention to: tkcPhone by theKompany.com? :^)

Re:Phone home?

[natecow]

My biggest disappointment with the new Zaurus is that Sharp no longer allows you to plug in a phone headset. This is a major problem if you are developing cool Zaurus VOIP apps - or anything related to speech recognition where you need a close-talking mic. I'd love to hear if someone knows of an easy way to get audio into the SL-5600 (without having to hold the PDA in front of your face).

Hmm

[B3ryllium]

Does it run BeOS? heheh

Re:Hmm

[The J Kid]

Well sure, but then it wouldn't support Ogg/Vorbis would it?

Re:Hmm

[B3ryllium]

BeOS does support OGG/Vorbis.

Re:Hmm

[SuperCal]

I haven't tried it, the Z does run BOCHS and I think BeOS will run in BOCHS so... yes it might run BeOS

Re:Hmm

[SN74S181]

More likely it'll run CP/M-86.

Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[mcgroarty]

This is very close to being a perfect device. The only complaint I've got is that it's yet another 240x320 screen device. At that size, it's not quite enough to make it easy on the eyes for extended use.

For eBook use, one of the more popular applications for PDAs, you really need something more like the newer Sony Palm devices. This resolution isn't quite enough for crisp fonts (even with subpixel rendering) and it's small enough that most preformatted PDF/Web content still needs to scroll half a screen horizontally to be read at a legible magnification.

Can we please please see a Zaurus with a 360x480 display?

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[ender_wiggins]

ebooks most popular? Whatever! I dont know ANYONE who reads books on a pda. I havent even seen anyone doing that!

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[pdbogen]

I can read beautifully on my Dell Axim's 320x240 transflective display with a white-on-black font.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[JesseL]

1) Reading on my monochrome 240x320 iPaq has never caused me any eye strain, headaches, etc. YMMV of course.

2)Sharp has already released in Japan the Zaurus SL-C700, which has avery nice 640x480 screen. I believe there is a company importing these with modification to be usable by english reading/non-japanese reading people.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[bryanthompson]

I read books on my iPaq all the time. The main advantages for me are that I hate the feel of books and I hate actually turning pages. The only problem is that my ipaq doesn't have a comfortable jog-wheel type scroller, so it's a little uncomfortable to hold it up and read while pushing the thumb scroller.
Once I go off to college I might actually use it for work, but for now its just a toy.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[wmacgyver]

the company you are speaking of is Dynamism. http://www.dynamism.com/zaurus/index.shtml

There has been some rumors of C700 coming to US, but nothing offical.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[darkgumby]

I do everyday. Handspring Visor Deluxe or Palm IIIc. And hopefully a Z soon!

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[jhunsake]

You're one fucked up little boy...

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[jandrese]

I just finished the first two Honor Harrington ebooks from the Baen Free Library on my Palm VIIx. I find it to be very pleasant on the eyes, not so pleasant on the thumb (although that is a design defect of the VII series: a very stiff up/down rocker). The text flows very naturally and the whole package is smaller than a regular book. The only limitation is that you don't get the occasional graphics in there, but for most books that's not really a problem.

I've actually started to prefer reading books on the PDA. The text seems to flow better, the printing is never spotty, and it never uses a lousy font. Additionally, the palm has a backlight and Weasel reader is a fine piece of software. The only thing that might be cooler (although my Palm couldn't do this, but the Zarius might) is to hook up a good speech synthesis unit and have your ebook read to you while you drive or whatnot like some sort of computerized book on tape.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[Hot Soup LD]

Dude, hold out for the SL6700. It's got a full 640x480 LCD screen. I'd quote specs, but you're already on the Internet. Go find it yourself. ;)

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[Hieronymous Cowherd]

Well, now you know, or at least have heard from, several people that read ebooks on their PDAs. In fact, it's so popular that there's a fairly well-trafficked newsgroup dedicated to it. On my Clie, I can keep a decent bookshelf ready to go, and I've *always* got a book with me. PalmReader and iSilo are both quite legible, and it's nice to not have to worry about keeping track of multiple bulky items in order to have books easily accessible.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[Anonymous Coward]

I havent even seen anyone doing that!

You haven't seen anyone doing that, eh? Generally, I tend not to stare at geeks' crotches while they're busy reading, so I couldn't tell you whether or not other people do.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[mcgroarty]

I read on a color iPAQ 3975 at that resolution. It's nice for fifteen minutes or half an hour, but not much more than that. I have to end up bringing the fonts up to large sizes and holding the device at arm's length to get comfortable with the text.

I borrowed a Sony Clie for a while at a slightly higher resolution, and it made all the difference in the world.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[exhilaration]

Perhaps you need glasses or a new prescription.

Just a thought.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[mcgroarty]

The problem is that I see the individual squares. The thing looks too blocky. If I were getting glasses, it'd be to blur the thing -down!- :)

Maybe some sandpaper and a light touch and I could 'frost' the display...

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[Zarquon]

The last Honor Harrington hardcover (War of Honor) had a CD full of ebooks and other goodies in the first 100k copies. I read mine on an EbookMan (Costco $50 deal, while it was running.) Ebookman is a nice PDA, if a bit low on typical PDA applications. Screen is roughly _twice_ the size of current palm devices.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[Dylan Zimmerman]

I, personaly, like the Newton MessagePad 2100. It has a 160 MHz processor, two Type II PCMCIA card slots, a battery that lasts through 24 straight hours of use, and a 320*480 screen. The screen is only grayscale, but I don't care. It's much better than any PalmOS device for my purposes. It's like having a full desktop computer in your pocket. With VNC and an 802.11b card, you CAN carry your desktop with you in your pocket! Its OS is very easy to use and it recognizes real handwriting over its entire screen.

Now, the tablet form-factor is what I really want, but they have to come down in price before I buy one. The UI would also need a total overhaul as every UI I have used on a tablet style device has been a desktop UI. Pen-based use is fundamentaly different. The desktop metaphors don't work nearly as well as others.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[mcgroarty]

The one thing that really, really worked well on the Newtons was the font. As I remember it, the font was a slightly tweaked version of the old Mac system font, which was really wonderful for LCD use.

Re:Almost. So close, if only for the screen!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not as though they have to worry about incompatabilities w/ software for other pocket pcs. There's no reason they couldn't do that.

ebay=~200

[Anonymous Coward]

retail Price on HSN: 499
average price on ebay: ~200
with the coupon it is a deal, but not 300+$ off like the hsn website would lead one to beleive, even if it is "mint in box"

Re:ebay=~200

[gregfortune]

Huh? HSN Price: $198.92

Re:ebay=~200

[Anonymous Coward]

msrp = 499
hsn = 198
hsn says "u save 300"

Re:ebay=~200

[Mochatsubo]

Hmm. Looks like this AC has a Zaurus on ebay for auction.

-mim

Re:ebay=~200

[ftumph]

Ordered mine from hsn.com for $178 this morning. Looking on ebay, people are still paying $250 and up for used ones.

Hmmmm... maybe should have ordered more from hsn.com :-)

Damn You HSN!!

[4minus0]

Outstanding Timothy.
You just devalued my ebay auction of my Zaurus 5500.
Now I'll be stuck with it forever or somehow explain to my wife how the damn thing lost oh around $200 of value overnight.:)
"You're selling it for how much???"
Hmmm, guess I'll be dropping my reserve next time around.

How about a GSM CF card option???

[Kiev()]

and bluetooth with headset profile. SO I won't have to buy loox

Wrong specs listed up top.

[IceFox]

right specs:
64 flash (that is rw via jff2)
32 RAM

The SL-5600, which is powered by a 400 MHz Intel XScale processor, features a reflective QVGA (240 x 320 pixel) color LCD screen and a unique integrated QWERTY keyboard with sliding cover. It also includes a rechargeable (and replaceable) 1700 mAh battery, 64MB of protected Flash memory, 32MB of SD-RAM, dual expansion via CompactFlash and SecureDigital/MMC card slots, and an integrated speaker and microphone. The software stack is based on Linux along with the Qtopia GUI environment and PIM suite, Opera embedded browser, and the Geode Java virtual machine.

Re:Wrong specs listed up top.

[robson]

Unfortunately, the Zaurus 5600 is just a little too late to take advantage of Intel's new 200 mHz Xscale bus...

Re:Wrong specs listed up top.

[lamename]

Might want to mention that the specs for this product also include; "Linux based embedded OS (Embedix)". As it seems that this technology is owned by SCO; (see http://www.caldera.com/company/drdos.html), people might want to know that before making a purchasing decision.

Wimpy IR port?

[xht]

All the palm devices I know of, except for one obscure older model, have really wimpy IR ports. I'd like to be able to use mine as a programmable TV remote, but it only works from 3 feet away. Kind of defeats the purpose. Does anyone know if the IR strength in the Zaurus is any better?

Re:Wimpy IR port?

[Minna Kirai]

The Zaurus (at least the 5500 and 5600 models) is just as bad as any normal PDA for range.

Also, the IR port is on the left side, making it less convenient to aim at a television than a Palm (you can't grip it like a TV remote).

Finally, the Zaurus has around 10% of a Palm's battery life- nobody wants their remote to lose power every 2 days (Although, the new 5600 model has longer life, and you could always mount a charge cradle on your easychair)

-1, Too US Centric

[yem]

HSN.com don't ship outside USA.

Re:-1, Too US Centric

[naarok]

No kidding, I was at the site and wipping my credit card out as I was filling out my address info. Suddenly I notice that under country they have USA hardcoded. NOOOOOOOOO, I want a Zaurus, but can't afford the normal price right now. Argh!

Re:-1, Too US Centric

[Cave Dweller]

-1, Not k5; this ain't the edit queue ;P

Re:-1, Too US Centric

[Anonymous Coward]

Americans for you... you say "world" they say "America", you say "America" they say "offcourse"...

Re:-1, Too US Centric

[rbuysse]

Buy two, ship them both to me, I'll forward yours on...

Re:-1, Too US Centric

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh-oh! Better call the waaaaaaaaaaaaah-bulance!

You could always move here. No, wait. Don't. We have too many fucking whiners as is.

Re:-1, Too US Centric

[fireshipjohn]

Try www.digiuk.com and then Zaurus PDA's in the left hand menu, special offer 199 UKP with free docking station and other accessories available. There both sides of the Atlantic covered. John

Re:-1, Too US Centric

[Anonymous Coward]

That's still 345.32 EUR... (with VAT)

Quite a lot more than the 199.82 USD.

Re:-1, Too US Centric

[Schwuk]

That's the wrong model (the SL-5500).

Can you provide me

[Anonymous Coward]

with a high speed fibre optic connection that will be compatible with my token ring lan configuration?

Europe

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish it was that cheap in Europe also...

QWERTY keyboard

[Anonymous Coward]

Ok, you can type querty with your thumbs. But I want to know, can I pull off the keys and set them up in a Dvorak arrangement? (Don't want my thumb typing to screw up my Dvorak.) Maybe a razor blade and superglue would work...

Re:QWERTY keyboard

[jx100]

bah, don't worry about it. I switch beteween a QWERTY and a Dvorak all the time. I have no problem typing at decent speeds on both of them.

Couldn't take it any longer....

[senducemhere]

I see a 50 node Beowulf cluster in a 2u rackspace!

Re:Couldn't take it any longer....

[guttergod]

Argh! Here I read this topic as:
Star Ships Zaurus SL-5600; 5500 Available Cheap, and see my chance to get off this planet! This post isnt referring to star clusters and trek space is it?

Re:Couldn't take it any longer....

[mlrtime]

I see a $10,000 beowolf 2u cluster performing like a $2,000 1U PC.

Another Articletisement?

[goldspider]

(I've got kharma to burn, so sue me)

It's so good to see that Slashdot isn't selling out article space to advertisers.

Re:Another Articletisement?

[Bill Kendrick]

*shrug* Sorry. :^) To us geeks, it's exciting news.
Sure it happens to be news about a new commercial product / discounts for an existing commercial product.

But it's news! (for nerds!)

-bill!

argh

[odyrithm]

It dosnt seem to be that HSN do orders out of the USA/Canada... anyone know of global outlets or ones based in the UK with the same kinda deal?

Re:argh

[mistered]

Just to clarify and save anyone else the hassle, HSN doesn't ship to Canada either. It's strictly US only :(

I need to find a friend or a PO box in Buffalo NY :)

SL5000

[rf0]

If you want really cheap you still might be able to get a SL5000 which is below SL5500. I love my Zaurus, running Open Zaurus which give you Konquerer and with a CF Wifi gives a really cool portable table like client. Mixed with VNC for remote admin and SSH for cli interfaces.
Also make a cool MP3 player with cheap SD cards. There is so much I could write. Just get one. It rocks

Rus

A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[ElGuapoGolf]

I have a Zaurus, and while it's a great minicomputer, it's not a good PDA by any stretch.

After about 3 or 4 months of using the Zaurus, it went back on the shelf, and the old Psion Revo+ came out instead. The Revo/5mx just kick it all over the Zaurus (and PocketPC) when it comes to doing Actual PDA Stuff. The address book/agenda tool on the Revo is miles ahead of what you have on the Zaurus, and still better than what's on the PocketPC. And, if you want to kick it up a notch, the Word/Sheet programs on the Revo handle Word and Excel files about a hundred times better than Hancom Word/Sheet on the Zaurus. I just feel more productive with the Revo, and it seems that the software is better.

It's funny, but the Revo+ runs at about 1/6 the speed of the Zaurus, but Opera seems to render pages just as fast. It has half the memory, but it doesn't have any of the memory/space limitations I ran into on the Zaurus' internal memory. (Yeah, I kept the MP3s on a CF card).

I do hope that the OpenZaurus project continues, but it seems that they're not making any huge strides in the PIM areas. From what I understand, OZ's email client doesn't really work at all. Not confidence inspiring.

But I do miss the mp3 player.

Re:A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[Anonymous Coward]

After about 3 or 4 months of using the Zaurus, it went back on the shelf

So how cheap will you sell the Zaurus for?

Re:A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[YodaToad]

Karma to burn (not like it really matters anyway)!
OZ doesn't have an email client. OZ is just the underlying filesystem and system, not the gui or the applications. Opie is the default GUI/application set that OZ uses. PicoGUI is really coming along, though, and that's another option for a GUI.

I can't dispute your claims on the Revo, however, because I've never owned one. I can say that I prefer my Zaurus over my old Visor Deluxe, however, even though most people claim PalmOS is "better". The interface surely isn't better and it's a nightmare to develop for, which is a big reason I like the Zaurus. If there's not an application out there that does what I want the way I want it I don't have to go spend hours upon hours learning new APIs just to make a small application. I can just use my knowledge of linux development and qt and directly apply that.

Re:A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[caseih]

Doesn't OpenZaurus use the Opie gui which is basically Qtopia plus improvements?

From the sound of it, OpenZaurus can run all the old apps the Qtopia can (like opera and the hancom apps). Sounds like a clear winner to me.

Re:A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[ElGuapoGolf]

Actually, close but no.

OZ has issues running the Hancom apps. Which, honestly, aren't that good anyway.

I find that Hancom Word does some very odd things with Word docs that have tables, or bullets. Or both. Or maybe some combination of the two. The Revo's word processor doesn't.

Re:A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[ElGuapoGolf]

Yes, you're absolutely right and I apologize.

Opie doesn't seem to have a usable email client, at least, not quite yet. Their solution is to use the old Sharp/Qtopia client, which works, but it's *barely* better than nothing. It has some annoying issues with wrapping, and doesn't handle larger messages well (over 30K).

One of the things I loved about the Zaurus was the Java environment. However, it isn't enough to win me over when the basic apps are so lacking. In any event, I keep hoping that OZ/Opie get a serious head of steam and really start improving.

Re:A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[druske]

After using the Zaurus SL-5500 for a few months, I'm inclined to agree, though everyone has their own idea of what a "PDA" needs to be. Even the SL-5500 was a very capable device, and I wrote a favorable review for PocketAnywhere.com (a site I'm no longer affiliated with). The PIM software was weak, though I was optimistic that offerings from theKompany would soon fix that, if Sharp didn't themselves. It was very cool browsing the web with Opera over a wireless link, and fooling around with VNC.

So why'd I sell it and go back to using a Palm m505 after a few months? Mostly because the capabilities of the SL-5500 were things I really had no use for. If I needed to browse the web on a tiny screen, or needed VNC or other networking tools in a miniature package, I never would've let this thing out of my sight. As it was, though, it didn't do basic PIM functions nearly as well as Palm (even with theKompany's products), and --- this is the real killer --- was simply too big. If a PDA is too big, I don't carry it around, and if I don't carry it with me, it's useless.

Everyone's needs are different, and I hope that a variety of devices continue to be available to meet them. Sharp's an important player here. Not only are they selling one of the best handheld tools out there, but their presence is one more barrier to the erosion of choice we'd have if Palm or Microsoft monopolized the market.

Re:A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[Minna Kirai]

More karma to burn:

OZ doesn't have an email client. OZ is just the underlying filesystem and system, not the gui or the applications. Opie is the

The phrase "OpenZaurus has an email client" is factual. Here it is (and there may be more)

http://www.openzaurus.org/official/unstable/feed/o pie-mail2_0.0.9-20030317_arm.ipk

The fact that it came from someplace else and wasn't directly written by the OpenZaurus team, doesn't mean their distribution doesn't have an email client. They probably didn't write the kernel either, but no one would claim OZ doesn't have one. If you download and compile OZ, an email client will pop out.

Additionally, The complaint "OpenZaurus's email client is unworkable" is a true statement, and a valuable piece of data for someone considering the OZ system. The Zaurus as shipped includes an email client that, while poor in many regards, at least can download from a normal POP3 server. Last I checked, the Opie mailer is IMAP only.
(Yes, some people may prefer IMAP, and it may work fine for them. But it's no good to the average user.)

Re:A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[Anonymous Coward]

> most people claim PalmOS is "better"

PalmOS is ugly stuff which is designed in some 80's way. It's something which will be disappearing in a few years while Palm devices die.

Re:A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[pantherace]

OZ has issues running the Hancom apps. Which, honestly, aren't that good anyway.
The first part I will disagree with (I run OZ (rc2, atm, because I am lazy) and Hancom stuff works as well as on the Sharp ROM, as in the software functions as designed, and doesn't crash, etc)
The second part is debatable.

Re:A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[theLOUDroom]

Actually, I have/had a Psion Revo+ and a Sharp Zaurus.

the Word/Sheet programs on the Revo handle Word and Excel files about a hundred times better than Hancom Word/Sheet on the Zaurus

You're not being fair here. The programs on the Revo did not handle actual MS Word or Excel files. They were converted into a special format for the Psion to handle. I did really like that the spreadsheet on the revo could do graphs though, and it's stupid that the Zaurus does not have spellcheck.

It's funny, but the Revo+ runs at about 1/6 the speed of the Zaurus, but Opera seems to render pages just as fast.

I'm going to have to disagree with you here too. The Revo was not very fast, and I'm pretty sure your claim wouldn't stand up to a head-to-head comparison.

The Revo had some great things going for it. The OS was really polished. The keyboard was great, but overall, it was too crippled. How were you supposed to surf the net with it? The only way to connect with it was via serial or infrared. Contrast that with the 11Mbps I get with my wifi card and the Zaurus and then tell me which lets you surf the net faster.

As for never hitting the space limitation, you must have not done that much with it. I was up against that wall all the time, an unlike that Zaurus there was no way to move it back. Besides the Revo had no freaking backlight, which drove me crazy trying to read ebooks on it.

Finally, the Revo being the perfect PDA? Hardly. Psion failed to implement the IROBEX standard, making it a real bitch to beam contacts and appointments to and from anything besides another Psion. I had to install 3rd party software just so I could get it to share info. Contrast this with the Zaurus, where I've never had a problem in that area.

Re:A good minicomputer, but not a good PDA.

[ElGuapoGolf]

Ah, good points, but...

You're not being fair here. The programs on the Revo did not handle actual MS Word or Excel files. They were converted into a special format for the Psion to handle.
This is very true. And that means the programs on the revo themselves never had to be updated. Only the conversion software. And there is conversion software you can run onboard the Revo, which is actually superior to the PsiWin stuff.

Finally, the Revo being the perfect PDA? Hardly. Psion failed to implement the IROBEX standard, making it a real bitch to beam contacts and appointments to and from anything besides another Psion.

There's a freeware/shareware IR driver that acomplishes this very nicely. I do it all the time, actually. The *ONLY* platform that gives it fits is PocketPC. Go figure.

How were you supposed to surf the net with it?

That's what my computer is for. My Revo+ is an emergency email/web machine when I'm travelling. Plain and simple.

Screwed up sorry

[odyrithm]

It was the 64meg of Ram not flash I was talking about, sorry.

Re:Screwed up sorry

[Anonymous Coward]

who ever modded that to troll....... little man, little penis, nothing better to do than mod down.. ever thought about modding up your dick? u sad fat fucking loser with no life, no girlfriend, no real friends and no drinking ability.. you suffer from hemroids to dont you? and a serious case of gas.. your ugly and kids point and laugh at you in the street.. your never go newhere after death because u have no soul. u sorry excuse for a human being.

Comic Book Guy

[Anonymous Coward]

Worst.

Post.

Ever.

Obligatory "UHF" Quote

[goldspider]

"Tell ya what, friends... if nobody comes down here and buys a car in the next 30 minutes, I'M GONNA CLUB THIS BABY SEAL!! That's right, I'd club a seal to make a better deal! You know I'll do it too, cuz I'm CRAZY!"

-Crazy Earnie, the Used Car King

SL-5500 vs SL-5600?

[10Ghz]

So, how do the two compare to each other? SL-5600 has faster processor (at least in theory), 5500 has more RAM (64MB vs 32MB), but 5600 has more Flash-RAM. Which one is faster?

Re:SL-5500 vs SL-5600?

[Anonymous Coward]

Depends.

In some of the games we tested 5500 was actually slightly faster than 5600 ....

Re:SL-5500 vs SL-5600?

[Bill Kendrick]

See IceFoxes comments with exact specs.

The SL-5500 has 64MB of SD-RAM, but it's typically divided between 'storage space' (like a hard drive on a desktop) and 'place for programs to run in' (like RAM on a desktop), much like other PDAs do it.

This gives you, by default, 32MB of 'RAM' and 32MB of 'storage.'

On the new SL-5600, they've got only 32MB of SD-RAM, but it's all used as 'RAM'.
So no loss there (unless you were doing something funky with your SL-5500 to get more than 32MB; like running your filesystem off an SD card).

But it's got a lot of flash (64MB, IIRC) available for storage, so compared to the SL-5500, you get twice the _space_ (for data and programs), and an added bonus of not worrying about the data getting lost if the batteries die.
(Some would say "when" the batteries die. But honestly, I use my SL-5000D regularly, and charge it over night, and haven't had it die completely in almost a year!)

-bill!

Re:SL-5500 vs SL-5600?

[JCholewa]

> So, how do the two compare to each other? SL-5600 has faster
> processor (at least in theory), 5500 has more RAM (64MB vs 32MB),
> but 5600 has more Flash-RAM. Which one is faster?

To clarify this a little:

The 5500 splits its DRAM in two. Half the DRAM is used for memory, and the other half is used for storage. So the 5500 in its default setup has 32MB storage, 32MB memory.

The 5600 uses the DRAM exclusively for memory, and the 64MB Flash is used for storage, and 32MB DRAM is, as I said, memory only. So, in all, we're in a position where the 5600 has an equal amount of memory but twice as much storage.

The situation is such that the storage would be faster on the 5500 (being DRAM and not Flash), but the memory accesses would be faster on the 5500 (being that the DRAM controller doesn't have to manage between the storage and memory functioning of the DRAM). I have no idea how this works out in the end. But I really do like the larger storage, and the fact that the data won't disappear when you run out of power is kind of nice.

My SL-5000D has something like 32MB DRAM and 16MB Flash. I'm using OpenZaurus, an alternative ROM for the device, and that allows me to use the Flash as storage. To avoid out-of-memory errors, I have all of that 32MB from the DRAM set for memory. The device uses the internal Flash for storage, though very little of that is available for me to install applications. I use an SD card for most of my apps and for various types of data files (books, Qt programming docs, NES ROMs, et al).

This seems to work very nicely, which is good. I've had this tradition of buying a new PDA around this time each year (last three purchases were Visor Prism, HandEra 330 and SL-5000D). But I'm finding that the meager salary of a programmer/webmaster/computer repair guy/etc. ($24k/yr) isn't really enough to absorb the $300 price of a new PDA, so I'm very happy that the Zaurus is working well for me. I've recently cut down my personal website's cost by $150 (down from $350 to $200 per year or so), and I'm about to cancel a long-running subscription to the OmniSky service, and that should save me something like thirty bucks more a month. The dual expansion of the Zaurus is one of the things that'll allow me to keep going with it. I have this unlimited storage, but I might (due to the above budget cuts) be able to put a neat wifi connection onto it in a couple months. Yay! :)

Zaurus is awesome. It's awesome because I can compile my regular applications (the applications that I write for Windows 2000) on it without necessarily needing to change any of the code. It's awesome because I can pretty much do anything I need with it (reading books, running the occasional PalmOS app, albeit slowly, playing nintendo, etc.). And it's awesome because I get that groovy feeling knowing that most of the applications I use were made by people who made them simply to contribute to the community. That's a nice sort of feeling. :)

-JC

Re:SL-5500 vs SL-5600?

[Anonymous Coward]

couple points of old vs new...

the old unit at 266MHz is actually FASTER than the 400MHz xscale processor for various apps/instructions. something to do with a "bug" of the xscale processor running some things slower, which is one reason why they cranked the processor speed up. so, no, the new unit is NOT twice as fast.

o the new unit has external speaker and mic,
the old unit has neither, must use headphones
or a special unit with both.

o both units have sd/MMC and CF slots (type II?)
so, 512 MB SD card + a 1 GB CF (or later). not
too shabby for a portable device.

o you can readily program it in java 1.2

o it runs linksys and other CF wifi cards out
of the box. very sweet. you can obtain
the bash shell, and ssh, and more for free.

o it'll run a number of chat clients, including
multiple protocol ones! irc, yahoo, aol, etc
(not trillian, the other major product)

o they can input from handwriting, keyboard,
tapboard, or unicode :>

o they are ideal as picture wallets for your
compact flash digital camera needs. pop
and go. no conversion.

o it can accept beams from palm-os DBs directly
and saves them as XML! woo hoo. further,
it can read many native file formats without
any conversion: pdf, html, gif, jpg, excel,
word, etc, etc.

o it can run perl and emacs

o it can have a java or c or other compilers
as well

o it'll slice bread and get you dates!

o buy one today! (har)

Re:SL-5500 vs SL-5600?

[Anonymous Coward]

I spoke with the guy from Sharp at Linux Expo in NYC in January. He said that the new 400MHz Xscale processor isn't much faster than the old 206MHz StrongARM. PocketPC users complained about the same thing.

About the difference in RAM - the SL5500 has 64 mb of RAM that it SPLITS. You get 32 megs (as a ramdisk) for STORING applications, and 32 megs for RUNNING applications. The new 5600 has 32 dedicated to running apps and does away with the while "ramdisk" idea.

Re:SL-5500 vs SL-5600?

[RevAaron]

Can you change the amounts used for RAM and storage? On WinCE or PocketPC, you can adjust the amounts used for each- for what I do on my Jornada 720 (WinCE), I need a lot of RAM. I have 30 MB of the 32 MB dedicated to RAM, only 2 MB to storage, and store everything on the 2 GB PCMCIA drive.

I was considering one of these after seeing this deal, but it'd be a shame to give up my beautiful 2 GB PCMCIA drive. :(

Re:SL-5500 vs SL-5600?

[dan the person]

Well as we all know, when it comes to benchmarking a new processor, there is no better test than the distributed.net RC5/OGR client.

Here is what a SL-5000d gets (same processor as SL-5500)

[Feb 28 03:35:45 UTC] OGR: Benchmark for core #0 (GARSP 5.13)
0.00:00:20.46 [985,933 nodes/sec]
[Feb 28 03:35:45 UTC] Automatic processor type detection found
a StrongARM 1110 processor.
[Feb 28 03:35:45 UTC] RC5-72: using core #0 (ARM 1-pipe A).
[Feb 28 03:36:07 UTC] RC5-72: Benchmark for core #0 (ARM 1-pipe A)
0.00:00:19.16 [262,968 keys/sec]
[Feb 28 03:36:07 UTC] RC5-72: using core #1 (ARM 1-pipe B).
[Feb 28 03:36:29 UTC] RC5-72: Benchmark for core #1 (ARM 1-pipe B)
0.00:00:19.20 [260,694 keys/sec]

And here what the Sl-C700 gets (same processor as the SL-5600)

[Feb 27 03:31:04 UTC] OGR: Benchmark for core #0 (GARSP 5.13)
0.00:00:17.14 [709,203 nodes/sec]
[Feb 27 03:31:05 UTC] Automatic processor type detection did not
recognize the processor (tag: "XScale-PXA250 rev 4 (v5l)
")
[Feb 27 03:31:05 UTC] RC5-72: using core #0 (ARM 1-pipe A).
[Feb 27 03:31:24 UTC] RC5-72: Benchmark for core #0 (ARM 1-pipe A)
0.00:00:16.90 [449,687 keys/sec]
[Feb 27 03:31:24 UTC] RC5-72: using core #1 (ARM 1-pipe B).
[Feb 27 03:31:43 UTC] RC5-72: Benchmark for core #1 (ARM 1-pipe B)
0.00:00:16.99 [421,430 keys/sec]

So it's approximately double the speed on RC5, but about 25% slower for OGR. Wonder what the cache sizes are like, i bet the OGR core is bigger than RC5

Re:SL-5500 vs SL-5600?

[pantherace]

Yes, there are modified ROMs to do that (essentially stick a cf card in, shut it down, flash it, and you are set)

Crow rom is a modification of the Sharp, just with modification to the amount of RAM allocated where.
Open Zaurus is a different rom, and is in many ways nicer, and will run all of the programs that the Sharp ROM will run.

Re:SL-5500 vs SL-5600?

[RevAaron]

But you cannot change this dynamically? Say, with a slider? You have to make a change in a ROM and reboot?

Re:SL-5500 vs SL-5600?

[pantherace]

No, not really.* *You can have it be modified dyamically, by mountinng a 'ramfs' someplace, but afaik there is no way to limit the size of it. (man mount shows no options for it, perhaps in the kernel) thanks for making me think about that, I'll probably mention it to people working on the OZ kernel and such like kergoth.

mplayer

[Anonymous Coward]

Could this one probably run mplayer (http://www.mplayhq.hu) ? You could use it watching adult movies under your blanket late at night while your mom thinks you are sleeping ;-)

Re:mplayer

[MrZaius]

Even if it doesn't run mplayer, there are video players from The Kompany for it, and an xmms port.

Re:mplayer

[gecko_x2]

Yes it does, i actually encoded an entire Stargate SG-1 episode using divx at 320x240, it fits nicely on a 128 mb mmcda card. I had to test different bitrates to find a good balance between the read speed of the mmcda card (about 150 kbit/s i think), the picture quality and the size of the clip, but once i found it the result was very cool indeed, an hour of smooth scifi action with stereo sound in your pocket :) The mplayer port has the same commandline options as it's big brother afaik..

Re:YOU DID IT!

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont get your hopes up, its actually the New York Linux User Group..

Re:Phone home? - Link to voip software for Zaurus

[jibbidy]

I have owned my zaurus for a few months now and LOVE it. I thought about voip from the get-go and eventually ran across this link to voip software for the zaurus. I haven't tried it, but may do so in the future. The only problem: with my model (SL-5500) there is no microphone. Check it out: http://www.thekompany.com/embedded/tkcphone/

What have you been looking at for $600?

[pHDNgell]

The absolute best home audio player I've found yet is the slimp3. My wife went over there and picked one up for me for Christmas. I think it was $250. The installation was thoroughly impressive (I plugged it in, started the OS X server on my laptop and it had all of my music available, including the iTunes playlists). I actually run the real server on the Solaris machine that has all of my music, though.

It has no buttons or touch screen, which doesn't so much matter to me because I'm rarely anywhere near it when I want to listen to music.

It does have a pretty kick-ass web UI (on the server) and a useful enough remote, though. My wife and I use to fight on the UNIX system that was hooked up to the stereo...see which one of us could get our song next in the queue (I had a pretty primitive setup where there wasn't exactly a queue, but you could play a list of songs or whatever). Now we just hit the web server, queue stuff up, unqueue stuff, etc...

Re:What have you been looking at for $600?

[Anonymous Coward]

So how does it work ... you buy that screen and you put it in your own case?

Re:What have you been looking at for $600?

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me show to your wife how to play with her, wanker !

Why Did Sharp Lower The Ram?

[zackZ]

Still can't figure out why they lowered the RAM?

Re:Why Did Sharp Lower The Ram?

[perlow]

This is Jason Perlow, formerly Software Manager and Developer Liason on the Zaurus here.

The 5600's memory architecture is different from the SL 5500's, but effectively the end user has the same about of avalaible storage and program execution memory as they did on the 5500. The reason is that all program storage now occurs on a JFFS2 partition on the FLASH, as opposed to running in a RAMDISK in the RAM. In the 5500, the RAM is partitioned into a 32MB ramdisk (MTDRAM) for program and 32MB of RAM for program execution. On the 5600, 32MB of the 64MB of flash is allocated to user storage on a JFFS2 partition (which is a compressed file system, so technically you can get more than the 32MB) and the 32MB RAM is used -exclusively- for program execution.

Why did they move user storage to Flash instead of running it in RAM? Simple. Battery dies, you don't lose your data.

Read the FAQ

[Hollins]

Read the FAQ

Funny, I don't see people complaining that articles about proposed censorship laws in New Zealand are kiwi-centric.

Re:Read the FAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

"Funny, I don't see people complaining that articles about proposed censorship laws in New Zealand are kiwi-centric."

Simple because it says so in the title AND article. Here the submitter AND the poster plugged a specific vendor and didn't say it was US only.

Re:Read the FAQ

[Anonymous Coward]

Funny, I don't see people complaining that articles about proposed censorship laws in New Zealand are kiwi-centric.

You will when they're talking about New Zealand, Kansas =)

Re:Read the FAQ

[yem]

I was expecting Funny, but whatever.

Impulse purchase

[RabidChipmunk]

Darn You Slashdot! I've managed to put off buying these things because I couldn't justify the cost.

I grabbed the $180 hsn. Now I have to explain it to my wife. I was softening her up for a camera. Now I have to start over.

Good thing I have a job.

Re:Impulse purchase

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't rub your job in my face. That hurt man. I can't even afford this thing because I got laid off a year ago and still haven;t found a job.

Re:Impulse purchase

[Anonymous Coward]

You could at least shamelessly plug yourself whereever you go. You wasted a whole /. post with no URL to your resume with a one-liner about you.

There's got to be something special about your resume. If there really isn't though, then consider a different line of work. If you're unable to promote yourself and you're unable to differentiate yourself, then why waste more time?

I'm not trolling, but these are the facts of the times. Roll with it...

Re:Impulse purchase

[mrscorpio]

Heh, I'm in the same boat. I just got my N80/24-85 3.5-4.5 AF-S/50 1.8d and all the fixins set up that I've wanted for a couple of years (well, both lenses are pretty new but you know what I mean). This offer is too good to pass up!

Fortunately I can have it shipped to work and leave it there for a while ;)

Chris

Re:Impulse purchase

[DanAnderson26]

Just buy her one too. You'd be surprised, I bought my wife a Palm III a couple years ago. She uses it for everything. In fact, she uses it at least 10x more then I use mine. I saw this deal and bought 2.

Now I'm golden when they arrive. Add a wifi cf card to it, and I'm set for her birthday!

Dan

c700 OZ

[redfenix]

Last time I knew, OPIE was not successfully running on the c700s yet. You may want to research a bit before flashing.

Physical Size

[rwiedower]

I don't think it's physical size. Take a look at the size of the bluetooth module Dell threw into their new Centrino laptops in this article. I'm tempted to guess power needs, but you could always disable the bluetooth module until you really needed it. The new Palm Tungsten T has built in bluetooth and it's very small. Given the price of the palm, I'll go with cost.

Re: Winpy IR port? (off topic)

[arth33]

You might want to look into the Sony Clie's. They come with the software to run as a remote and they have a range of about 4.5 metres. Look into specific models though. My wife's T415 is great (easily usable from across the room) whereas my SJ20 is lucky to extend much past two feet. Any of the Sony's that ship with their "Remote Commander" software should do what you're looking for. Of course, these are palm based solutions, for better or worse.

HSN is down

[Anonymous Coward]

Good job boys

Yes, it works with linux...

[redfenix]

Are you kidding? The Zaurus is the premier linux PDA. It's worked with Linux desktops probably within weeks of its release. Trust me, the path is well traveled by now.

That being said, in order to make the USB sync work with linux, you will most likely have to recompile your kernel, so make sure you're comfortable doing this before attempting it.

Holy Fsck!! HSN is slashdotted...

[JiffyPop]

All I get is a DNS error now. It worked five minutes ago.

On another note: anyone know what shipping and handling are on this? And why don't they have the model number listed in the info? I couldn't find anything about either of these on their site...

Re:Holy Fsck!! HSN is slashdotted...

[jroysdon]

Their DNS doesn't have any reply to A record queries for www.hsn.com. The DNS servers work just fine for hsn.com (which forwards you to www.hsn.com).

Thinking I'd be clever, I added '192.234.237.80 www.hsn.com' to my hosts file, but sure enough I just get a URL redirection loop error (as hsn.com and www.hsn.com must be two different servers).

Oh well, and for that price I was going to plunk down the cash right now.

Re:Holy Fsck!! HSN is slashdotted...

[JiffyPop]

... and i got glasses and noticed that S&H is $8.95... i still don't see a model number, though

5500 vs 5600 -- strongly consider the 5500

[rjamestaylor]

The 5600 is very nice, but differs from the 5500 mainly in battery and updated applications (like Opera 6 versus 5). The XScale is twice the MHz but not twice the speed, something Apple users understand; I recall other hardware mfg'ers having real problems getting the XScale to work properly. I would expect that the newer applications will be made available for 5500 users, since there is little hardware change to prevent this, but the albatross of poor battery life made the 5500 untenable for applications needing to run a scanner or 802.11b radio.

I'm excited about the 5600 for my use and still recommend the 5500 for general development and use.

Go Sharp!

Questions for a current Zaurus owner...

[PunchMonkey]

Before I whip out my credit card and ask a friend in the U.S. to forward this on to me since hsn doesn't ship to Canada :-(

- How's the battery life? ~4 hours? ~20 hours? How much do you use your s and how often do you have to recharge?

- The OS that comes presinstalled, it's linux based right? Do I get a shell with it? Can I compile and run most linux apps? What's the deal with OpenZaurus?

I did try and get answers from HSN and myzaurus.com (and even openzaurus.com) but these ones weren't answered.

Thanks!

Re:Questions for a current Zaurus owner...

[JCholewa]

> Before I whip out my credit card and ask a friend in the U.S. to forward this on to me since hsn doesn't ship to Canada :-(
> - How's the battery life? ~4 hours? ~20 hours? How much do you
> use your s and how often do you have to recharge?

I have a SL-5000D, which has a much smaller battery than the SL-5600. It gets a little better battery life than the Handspring Visor Prism, if that helps. Actually, it's probably much better in the summertime, since the Prism's screen is unreadable in the daylight, but I could totally turn off the front-light on the Zaurus in daytime (for longer hours and all that). Still, I keep mine plugged in as often as possible, though I do have it set up to have all my data on the Flash ROM, so I don't lose anything (even installed apps, even prefs, whatever) if I do lose power.

> - The OS that comes presinstalled, it's linux based right?

Yeah. Based on Debian's arm-ported binaries, though it's not Debian itself. I think that there is a debian port (with X and all), but that's just insane, man!

> Do I get a shell with it?

Sharp put its terminal program on the CD. It's easy enough to install, but there are better choices. There's a port of Konsole (the tabbed terminal program used in KDE) for the Zaurus that is very popular.

> Can I compile and run most linux apps?

Good question. If you're good at cross compiling, you'll probably have good luck with command-line apps. Graphical apps are a little different. The Zaurus doesn't normally use X. X is huge for a PDA. You could get it, but that's ... well, it's insane. Anyway, programs requiring X libs obviously won't work. Zaurus uses Qtopia, which is a PDA-ish environment based on Trolltech's Qt, a widget set and toolkit for many operating systems. It's neat. I use Qt for my programs (it makes programming a lot easier), and I can easily cross compile gui apps between x86/Linux, x86/win32, ppc/macosx (well, I could if I had the compiler for OS X, and it'd help if I had OS X itself!) and the Zaurus.

> What's the deal with OpenZaurus?

It's mostly just a different ROM with different default applications. It uses Konqueror/Embedded instead of the Opera browser. It's made with ssh in mind instead of the insecure ftp that the Zaurus normally uses. It has better scripting support, though I haven't really looked at that stuff. The launcher configuration is amazing, at least compared to what Sharp offers for the SL-5000D. I can change background images for each category, I can change fonts, I can alter the widget style, I can have transparent menus ... lots of stuff like that. Oh, OZ also lets me use the Flash ROM for storage and the DRAM exclusively for memory access, though Sharp does that now, too.

On the negative side, OZ 3.0 can be a bit crashy and there's a few things that it doesn't work with (Opera, most Hancom Office -- the best office suite for PDAs, bar none -- stuff, and java apps), so if your life depends on that stuff, you might want to stick with Sharp.

-JC

Re:Questions for a current Zaurus owner...

[vjmurphy]

" How's the battery life? ~4 hours? ~20 hours? How much do you use your s and how often do you have to recharge?"

Generally, battery life is sorta bad: I use my Zaurus for about 10-15 minutes a day (on/off use, basically) and with that, the battery life is about 3 hours. When playing mps, though, ends up being about an hour of use.

When the battery is uncharged, everything goes bye-bye, too: I'm in the habit of backing up monthly.

"- The OS that comes presinstalled, it's linux based right?"

Yes.

" Do I get a shell with it? "

The shell doesn't come installed, but on the disk with other apps. Easily installable.

"Can I compile and run most linux apps? "

If you have a mind to do so, sure. Folks have ported apache, php, nethack, etc. to the Zaurus.

"What's the deal with OpenZaurus?"

Open source OS for the Zaurus: has its own PIM utilities (though, to be certain, both the Opie and Sharp PIM tools suck) and an active community working on it.

A do like my Zaurus, but I do not think it is a good PIM. The Palm is superior in usability, interface, etc. However, nothing beats telling folks that you are running a Web server on your PDA.

Re:Questions for a current Zaurus owner...

[weeeee]

For battery life go here

http://www.trowcom.co.uk/Z-Batt.htm

Lots of info on battery life under varying situations.

Re:Questions for a current Zaurus owner...

[dagnabit]

I picked up my Zaurus at Linuxworld in San Francisco last fall during Sharp's "half off" sale, and have been using it on a daily basis since then. I also own (and continue to use) a Palm IIIxe.

Battery life for me has been about 2 to 2.5 hours with full backlight on (it's got 5 different settings, including off. The darker you go, the longer it lasts). The screen is very reflective, so if you're outside (or sitting in a window seat on a plane) you can turn the backlight off and get as much as 4-5 hours out of it.

It seems to charge back up completely pretty quickly once you plug it in, though. And I normally leave it sitting in the cradle (a la Palm V) charging when I'm not holding it in my office, etc.

But the short battery life definitely sucks if you're truly mobile with it (I fly quite a bit for business). How I wish it took regular (rechargeable) AAA batteries like my Palm...

It uses embedded Linux as the underlying OS (uname shows "2.4.6-rmk1-np2-embedix").

There are a couple of free terminal apps you can install (including multi-tab Konsole) to get a shell while in GUI mode. Or I suppose you could kill the GUI and run at the command line... but who wants that in a PDA?

There are a couple of howtos for cross-compiling for, and native compiling on, the Z at docs.zaurus.com. I don't any of that myself (yet), though, so I can only say I've glanced at the docs and they seem fairly straightforward.

OpenZaurus is a ROM image replacement that gives you more access to the installed RAM, etc. I haven't run it myself, but I've seen lots of positive comments. One note: some/many commercial Zaurus app providers like theKompany only support official Sharp ROMs. If you load their stuff on OZ and it doesn't work, oh well. But the OZ developers seem to be interested in knowing about problems like that to make OZ better.

BTW, theKompany apps rock (IMO) compared to the built-in ones. Yes, they cost a couple of $$ each, but you get free upgrades for life.

For all it's shortcomings, I haven't found much I can't do with the Z that I do use the Palm IIIxe for. And the "wow" factor of listening to my OGG files while surfing wirelessly or writing something with the keyboard is right up there... I can't count the number of people next to me on flights who have said "what _is_ that thing?" :) The battery life could definitely be a problem though -- can't wait to try a 5600!

Re:Questions for a current Zaurus owner...

[g4dget]

Do I get a shell with it?

Yes, both from its built-in keyboard and via ssh.

Can I compile and run most linux apps?

Command line applications compile and run just fine. Most Linux GUI apps don't because it runs Qt/Embedded by default. However, there is an X11 server and environment available for it (see handhelds.org).

Re:Questions for a current Zaurus owner...

[g4dget]

Oh, I should add that you can run gcc both in-device and on your desktop.

If you plug in a 512M CF card, the whole thing is more powerful and has more memory and disk storage than most workstations had less than a decade ago.

Re:Questions for a current Zaurus owner...

[Anonymous Coward]

True: in fact, I love telling my boss that my PDA is faster than my desktop machine in a futile attempt to get a new desktop.

Re:Questions for a current Zaurus owner...

[rusty0101]

Battery life help...

If you want, you can make a battery pack from off the shelf parts at RadioShack. You will need to decide if you want AAA, AA, C, or even D cell batteries. Obviously there are advantages to each. As well as disadvantages.

The Power connector in the bottom of the Z is a "B" connector. (Take your Z in, try the plug in their test bundle to confirm for yourself.)

Get a battery pack for either three or four batteries. The Z operates at 4 volts, and charges at 5. 3 NiCad come to 3.6 volts, so you may prefer four batteries if you want to use these. 3 NiMhs come to 4.2 volts, which is enough to provide temporary power. 3 Alcaline or rAlcaline come to 4.5 volts which is enough to kick in the charging circuitry on my Z.

The primary problem with a home made external batt pack is that it is easy to get complacent and forget that you do still need to swap out the batteries from time to time. I built mine with two AAA packs in parallel. With my WiFi card in place, running Kismet I get about three hours life. Without the WiFi I have seen it up and running for 6 hours with backlight on. One thing I would do differently next time is make the battery packs switch toggled, using either pack, but not both. This may reduce run time, but would give me the option of effectively hot swapping the batteries from either pack.

Both battery packs are epoxied onto a sheet of plexiglass with a neopreen back to keep from scratching the back of the Z too badly. I then use a couple of elastic bands to hold things together, though there is a threaded hole in the back of the Z that with proper planning I could have used. (and will next time.)

To carry mine around I generally use a belt pouch I picked up at Home Depot. It's flexible enough that as I add and remove my wifi, battery pack, etc, the pouch closes fine. It's also ridgid enough that I carry it horizontally on my belt, opening at the front. With the battery pack hanging on the pda, and the wifi card installed, I put the Z in WiFi card firs, and the power connector protrudes just enough that the flap won't close over it, but will under it.

I understand that there are comercial battery packs available to provide the same functionality. My parts cost less than $10, as the plexiglass and neoprene tape were scraps from other projects.

Oh, one last thing, remember on the Z, center is positive (+).

-Rusty

Re:Questions for a current Zaurus owner...

[Anonymous Coward]

or get a Datanation iPowerPak designed for the ipaq but works 100% with zaurus.

I wouldn't buy one!

[ethank]

No OSX support and very shoddy support from Sharp leads me to think that the only reason you'd buy a Zaurus is because of Linux, not because of having any use of it as a PDA.

Personally, I wish I could get rid of my 5500.

Re:I wouldn't buy one!

[Anonymous Coward]

You can get rid of your 5500... Too bad it'll be for ~ $100 on eBay now!

Re:I wouldn't buy one!

[ethank]

Yeah, I know :( Sigh. Well, we do use them at school as handheld terminals and the like, just not as PDA's. I need a combo cell-phone PDA that works with the Mac. Few and far between I'm afraid.

Re:Holy Fsck!! HSN is slashdotted... Or not.

[JiffyPop]

well, its back... i guess i'm not patient enough to wade through a few dns errors and wait 10 minutes. the site is still plenty responsive, though...

Or better...

[Anonymous Coward]

Wait for the great SLC-700.
I know a guy who has one and it kicks ass !

Re:Or better...

[zackZ]

I don't think Sharp has any plans of releasing this baby in the US.

best Linux (Freebsd?) PDA ...

[Anonymous Coward]

What is currently the best Linux/Freebsd/Unix
PDA? I mostly want to program a little perl,
etc. If you're interested in responding --
no need for religioous war or meta conversations,
just dump your opinion, stats and reasons.

S-

Re:best Linux (Freebsd?) PDA ...

[zackZ]

The Zaurus is pretty decent. And OpenZaurus is from the debian base.

sharp spams

[entropy42]

When considering purchases such as this, keep in mind that sharp unapologetically spammed many members of debian-laptop with an ad. They harvested the addresses of people who had posted to the list. When I called them to complain about this their response was that they would "take me off the list."

Punish spammers. Don't buy sharp. A sampling of the spam I received:

Date: Mon, 2 Dec 2002 16:05:25 -0700
From: Sharp Systems Marketing
To: Paul Phillips
Subject: ADV: Special Offer from Sharp Systems

Award Winning Sharp Products

Paul Phillips

Sharp Systems of America is offering it's award-winning products for a breakthrough price!

We invite you to visit our website to learn more about the Actius notebook family and Sharp family of LCD monitors.

Re:sharp spams

[Anonymous Coward]

So did they actually take you off the list? If they did, then they're not a typical spammer. They might still suck a bit, but at least they -will- leave you alone. (For a while.)

Re:sharp spams

[Junta]

Are all the spams they send out in that format, with ADV: preceding the subject? If so, I think it should not be seen as too bad. What annoys me more are spammers that try everything they can to sidestep filters so the message ends up in front of someone actively trying to not see such things. When a company sends an email helpfully tagging itself as an advertisement, while at the same time providing a *valid* way to contact and be removed from the list, I don't think they should be punished.

Imagine if every credit card offer came with the words CREDIT CARD OFFER stamped on the envelope? Would make things convenient, wouldn't it?

I know, spamming a mailing list like debian-laptop isn't nice, but again I think the spam being helpfully flagged in a reasonable manner as being spam is a nice compromise.

Now for a large business paying by-the-byte, it could be an issue, but relative to othe things going on with a connection, the throughput consumed by spam is rather small in the scheme of things.

Re:sharp spams

[Cyn]

>Imagine if every credit card offer came with the words CREDIT CARD OFFER stamped on the envelope? Would make things convenient, wouldn't it?

Not really - I'd still need to shred any identifying information that came with it, then throw out my aluminum hat and form another, because their devices picked up it's signature and could now compensate.

The question isn't if you're paranoid - The question is if you're crazy ENOUGH. wait...

speed/features

[Anonymous Coward]

well as somebody else noted 400mhz doesnt mean twice as fast as 200mhz. in the case of the xscale cpu it means equal speed, the intel 1100 cpu is around as fast as the xscale at half the clock speed.
if you are planning to get a linux pda (like, a sharp) id wait for the sharp next gen pda, the one that looks like a mini notebook:

http://www.pdasaccessory.com/index.htm?news/zaur _a rt02.htm&0

i cant find info on the sharp zaurus portal, anyone got a link to the official sharp page ?

what happens when you order one?

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhm, I ordered one and then about 10 minutes later the order disappeared from the "quicktrack" page. No email either.

Is this typical or do I have to give them a call and see wtf happened to my order?

Linux + wireless + camera on PDA?

[Adam J. Richter]

I'd like to have a PDA that simultaneously has Linux, wireless and a camera, so that I could use it to transmit pictures, and perhaps try to make it into a video phone, or, perhaps someday, an encrypted video phone (and perhaps a remote desktop or remote TV, although I don't need a camera on the PDA for those applications).

I have a Toshiba e740, which has built-in 802.11b wireless and CF and SDIO slots, but I haven't seen Linux for it and I haven't yet found the time to look into trying to port ARM Linux on it seriously, although I did see a posting to the effect that porting to the e740 is expected to be difficult to impossible because it is much less documented than the iPAQ.

So now I wonder if I should get the Zaurus. It has Linux with drivers for the Prism-based 802.11b wireless CF cards such as one from Socket (I believe all of the 802.11b cards on the market are prism based, but I'm not sure). However, that would mean using an SDIO camera, and I don't know of one with published specifications (for example, there is one from Veo, but Veo does not document the protocols used to talk to their Observer camera, which I made the mistake of buying).

If anyone cares to respond to this query, I would appreciate separate indications of whether a device has well documented hardware without need to sign a nondisclosure agreement and whether a device has a driver. If I would have to use a binary-only driver (which I regard as probably illegal anyhow), I would be tied running one particular kernel, and would therefore rather not buy it at all. On the other hand, with documented hardware, I could conceivably write a driver.

Re:Linux + wireless + camera on PDA?

[rusty0101]

I won't make any claims as to it being a perfect solution, but there is a CF slot camera available for the Z. With only one CF slot avaiable however you won't get both 802.11b and the camera. One alternative would be to get a bluetooth SD card at which point you could use both the camera and a blutooth connection (perhaps to another Z with both a bluetooth and 802.11b adapter?)

The camera is somewhat limited however, I believe it is a 640x480 resolution camera. That may be enough for web work, but I wouldn't recomend it for other tasks.

My Z recongized the SMC CF 802.11b card with no problem. Runs fine at 11mbps. I was expecting problems as my two PCMCIA cards have had spotty support until recently.

Those are just my observations however. I have chosen not to get either the camera or the bluetooth adapters, so I can not give you test results.

-Rusty

zaurus with GPS

[Anonymous Coward]

good/simple GPS project with zaurus 5500/5600 and WAAS (3-meter accuracy) garmin GPS here: zaurus gps project

Dvorak users

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a razor blade and superglue would work...

Yes, properly applied, razor blades and super glue can stop Dvorak users from complaining.

Re:KISS ME I'M IRISH

[Anonymous Coward]

In the town where I live, they opened up an Irish pub last year. The cops made them delay the opening until after 17 March for that very reason.

LIARS!!! THIS ISN'T THE 5600!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I just called HSN and cancelled my order. What they're selling is actually the 5500!!! Notice the complete lack of details on the processor, processor speed and the memory details. This model is the 5500!! Their customer service rep just confirmed it and I have cancelled my order!

NEXT TIME RESEARCH BEFORE YOU POST, YOU @#$*%@ @_$(@

Coupon

[flyingdisc]

Looking at the website it would appear that the coupon is not valid for sales items, which this PDA is. No no further reduction - $198 it is!

Re:Coupon

[SpaceCoaster]

I have an order confirmation with the 15% discount applied using the HSN4719 coupon. Total price including shipping $178.03

Hope it ships!

Re:Coupon

[mbadolato]

It should. When the site was down and wouldn't finish processing my order, I called it in. The CSR gave me the price with the 15% off and confirmed the $178

Re:Coupon

[SpaceCoaster]

Thanks for confirming that. I only doubted it because the coupon page said it was 15% "On a fashion purchase".

I hope I am not put on HSN's fashion victim mailing lists, arrgggh.

I did!

[gabe]

I just ordered one. I don't know what coupon the article was referring to, but the best one on the page of coupons was for $15-25 off, and you can only use one, and it only came up as $15 off. No big deal. With the $11.95 "express" 5 day shipping (instead of the regular 10 day shipping) the total came to $195.87.

Now I just need to spend another $100 on a wifi cf card for it and I'll be good to go.

Re:I did!

[darkgumby]

I just saw a CF WiFI card at CompuUSA that has a rebate that takes it from $79 to $29. It's only good until the March 20th. I don't have a Z and don't know if this card works with it or not, but the price looks right!

Re:I did!

[galaxy300]

I couldn't find that one on the site. Does anyone have a link?

Re:I did!

[Anonymous Coward]

compusa ad from the paper
AmbiCom 802.11b Compact Flash Card
#293046 99.99 - 40 instant savings - 30 mfr. mail-in rebate.

http://www.compusa.com/products/product_info.asp ?p roduct%5Fcode=293046&csearch=1&cmid=gosku&pfp=srch 1

Re:I did!

[Panaflex]

Actually the 15% off $50 dollars gave me a 29$ discount. It meant 15% off purchase price up to $50 dollars.

Pan

Re:I did!

[gabe]

Wow. I feel ripped off. HSN.com told me I couldn't use that coupon.

OK, I'm a dumbass

[Anonymous Coward]

Hehe.. guess I should have read the original post a little closer. However, it doesn't change the fact that HSN is being a "little" deceiving with their product details. No product model number, they're reporting the exact battery spec of the 5600, they've been vague as hell about the memory specs and list no processor specs at all. And to top it off, they've used the 5600's retail price of $499. The 5500 retail price is actually $399 according to sharp's website.

they allowed for it through SD

[SHEENmaster]

I added a card the size of a stampt to get 256mb of extra storage and I can still use the cf slot for ethernet on my Zaurus.

That said, I recently replaced my first zaurus ($300) with a new zaurus ($250) only to be given a heart attack by this article.

4x the flash, half the RAM

[noda132]

The story's specs are off. The SL-5500 has 16MB of flash and 64MB of RAM. The SL-5600 has 64MB of flash (in two partitions, one read-only by default) and only 32MB of RAM.

Personally, I'm rather disappointed, since while 32mb of RAM is plenty to do PIM things and even watch movies, it's not enough to keep many apps on "quick-load" (i.e., permanently loaded in memory).

On the other hand, since it's got XScale, OpenZaurus runs on the 2.4.19 kernel AND supports SD cards. Which is tempting.

Irony?

[Thing 1]

Looking at the "PC Software Requirements" list:

Microsoft Windows 98/98SE/2000 Professional/ME/XP

So it runs Linux but requires Windows? Hahahahaha.

Re:Irony?

[madsenj37]

Actually besides wireless there are many ways to connect to linux also. http://docs.zaurus.com/lc_generic.shtml

Re:Irony?

[bstadil]

Not really, it actually shows that Linux can live productively with another OS. The Sharp guys are business men, not kamikaze pilots. The idea is to sell PDA's not to wage holy war.

If you think about it the best way to further Linux is to make it work with windows. Linux is flanking MS on all side. Servers, Phones, PDA's, Entertainment hubs. Windows will be the OS of choice for the Desktop for a while, but that is where they will stay. The Desktop..., trying anything else is futile

Re:Irony?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. The sync software that is *included* with the Zaurus is for Windows, but what you need to hook up to Linux is freely available.

I've got my Zaurus hooked up to my Linux box via USB right now, and I can ftp or telnet to it, or use the Linux version of the Qtopia desktop software to sync to it.

Whippersnapper! Re:A good minicomputer

[gilroy]

Blockquoth the poster:

I have a Zaurus, and while it's a great minicomputer, ...

Back in my day, people understood that "minicomputer" was the thing between "mainframe" and "microcomputer" on the hierarchy of power...

Re:Whippersnapper! Re:A good minicomputer

[Anonymous Coward]

What he meant to say, is that a big beowulf cluster of Zauruses makes a good minicomputer.

Re:Whippersnapper! Re:A good minicomputer

[Anonymous Coward]

Ahhh, the memories of running punchcards through an IBM 1130. It seems like only yesterday, probably because some of the routines still haven't completed.

Re:Whippersnapper! Re:A good minicomputer

[Dylan Zimmerman]

Well, that would be funnier to me if I didn't know that punchcards are still in use today. The space shuttle computers need to be programmed in-flight with boxes of punch cards. Sad, isn't it? I have more computing power in my pocket calculator than the entire space shuttle has. My desktop is more powerful than all of the space shuttles put together. NASA should really upgrade their hardware.

Re:Whippersnapper! Re:A good minicomputer

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, that's what I thought he meant. Are you saying he meant something else?

I wonder how today's Zaurus would compare to an old PDP-11 or Perkin-Elmer 3220?

I doubt that you could program the PDP-11 to play ogg files in real time (without adding a signal processor).

Which XScale?

[ijablokov]

Which XScale does it have, the PXA250 or 255? Big difference in speed as the 255 has a 200mhz bus to the 100mhz bus of the 250. Anyone know, specs aren't specific?

Re:Which XScale?

[mistered]

PXA250, with 100MHz bus, cache bugs, and all.

More than just the screen

[sjbe]

The biggest problem with the Zaurus (and most PDAs in my opinion) is not the device. Certainly there are issues with most any device and I can think of a few quibbles I have with the Zaurus. But the biggest issue IMO is still that the synch and integration software with PCs is still very poor overall.

I've written about this before (and probably will again) but these devices still only synch with a relatively small body of address books and calendars, much less a lot of the other stuff out there. Sure you can often get a particular PDA to work with a platform (say Windows or linux) but they do not work seamlessly with any and all software on those platforms. Lack of standards I guess. I'm dying to have a PDA that can synch with something besides Outlook without purchasing additional software and do it on any platform regardless of the platform.

The HSN deal...

[RevAaron]

Does the 5500 really have 64 MB of RAM? (as opposed to to the 32 MB others have said)

What about the screen? Does it have a nice reflective screen like the iPAQ's, that can actually be read out-of-doors? I'm an ecologist and use a PDA [among other things] for field data collection... I have Newton 2100 and a Jornada 720 and am still using the Newton more than the Jornada 720. A big part of this is that I cannot see the J720's screen in natural light almost at all, but the greyscale screen of the Newton is quite readable. Call me a dork, but instead of being cooped up all day, I much prefer to go out to the woods and code on a PDA.

What is the battery life on a SL-5500? Can you turn the backlight entirely off ala the iPAQ?

Re:The HSN deal...

[zackZ]

Don't use a screen protector and you should be fine!

Re:The HSN deal...

[RevAaron]

Fine with what? Are you saying a screen protector helps outdoor readability? By cutting down glare, or are these some special screen protectors that are doing something else?

Re:The HSN deal...

[LinuxInDallas]

Does Pocket PC have accessibility settings like desktop Windows so that you can choose a display setting with a lot of contrast? That may help.

Re:The HSN deal...

[RevAaron]

Yes, PocketPC has a contrast setting. So does WinCE. However, it isn't contrast which makes it impossible to read the Jornada 720 in full sunlight, but the fact that the screen isn't reflective. With high contrast at the highest bright setting, it is barely readable on an overcast day. I get the same results, more or less, with most non-reflective TFT displays- that is, like the kind you find on laptops. Mostly unreadable, especially in any sort of bright light. And when it is the time of year that I would be wanting to code in the woods, it is usually spring, summer or fall and bright enough outside.

The screens on devices like the color iPAQ models or the Zaurus 5500 are reflective, and with the backlight off, are *very* readable outside. Perfectly readable.

Re:Wonderful Tool --- Ok..

[ackthpt]

Ok, you bunch of weasels, you've talked me into one. Order is placed and I'll be expecting it some time in the near future. Hopefully they don't use UPS for shipping, since I gave them a P.O. Box, reason being it's easier for me to get to the PO than get something from UPS once they've realized I'm not home to sign for it and decide not to shove it behind the bushes (like they did with a neighbor's athletic shirt, I found 3 months later.)

I've been contemplating getting a PDA for a while, because I just can't keep track of everything anymore. It's not CRS, it's just too damn much to remember, all the while training up on new packages left and right. Sigh...

X is not insane

[Anonymous Coward]

I had to chuckle when I heard that statement. We were running X on 386's back in the mid 80's. That's with less (or as much) RAM and horsepower.

And that was a fairly reasonable CPU back then.

I'm glad to know we were all insane back then. :)

UK prices are higher :(

[danormsby]

I'd love one of these but the cheapest UK retailer I can find it dabs where a Sharp SL5500 costs £233 or around $360. :(

Huh? That's 233 UKP with VAT, i.e. US$365...

[Anonymous Coward]

Where's the bargain?

it's just funny

[g4dget]

that people keep claiming that something like that, a 400MHz RISC processor and 32M of RAM isn't fast enough for running X11 and therefore requires an embedded window system that is incompatible with what we run on our desktops.

Re:it's just funny

[AELinuxGuy]

This is not running X11. From the Trolltech website: Qt/Embedded has much lower RAM and ROM requirements than X. Clients also access the display directly for optimal graphics performance. Additional features such as anti-aliased fonts and alpha blending, not offered by X, are also available.

Re:it's just funny

[Anonymous Coward]

that people keep claiming that something like that, a 400MHz RISC processor and 32M of RAM isn't fast enough for running X11 and therefore requires an embedded window system that is incompatible with what we run on our desktops.

Here's where the old-timers chip in with stories about X11 servers that need to be pushed uphill, both ways, against the wind. I remember one company that upgraded it's Unix/X11 systems to Sun 3/60's (20 MHz CPU's performing at maybe 3 "MIPS") with a whopping 16 MB of RAM. Why shouldn't this handheld run X11 apps around 100 times faster.

Re:it's just funny

[rusty0101]

Considering that the Agenda PDA does run X, on a 66 mhz cpu with 8 to 16 Meg of memory, I don' think they are saying it can not run X. OpenZaurus itself is running X as well.

The question is really to what advantage does running X on this platform provide. Do those advantages outweigh the battery and performance improvements that running a different windowing system would provide.

Personally I don't think that the choice was particularly bad. Palm chose their own UI, the UI in PocketPC/WinCE is different from WinNT. Granted, in both cases the underlying OS also is significantly different.

-Rusty

Re:it's just funny

[bfree]

What advantage does X offer? Well it means that you could walk into work/home and have this connect onto your network, at which point you can run the programs from your handheld on your desktop, do your work and then take your work away with you to your home/work and continue. You could also pull up (small) X apps from servers on your network. I can imagine in a corporate environement being able to deploy your programs acroos the handhelds and desktops in one fell swoop would be a major plus. Imagine the alternative, write (at least) two programs and design OS level integration to ensure that all data is shifted around and updated as it should. X offers possibilities and integration that no? other system offers. Occassionally you can write these off and take any other solution you want but usually leaving it in place or choosing it as the obvious candidate will allow some people to do things you would never have thought of or bothered with.

wrong memory figures

[g4dget]

The summary gets it wrong. The SL-5600 has 32M of SDRAM and 64M of Flash; the SL-5500 has 64M of SDRAM and 16M of Flash "ROM". See here.

The reason is probably that without using an add-on Flash card, the old SL-5500 stored a lot of stuff in RAM, which was easily lost. The only reason I can imagine why they lowered the amount of SDRAM is for battery life, although that seems kind of short-sighted to me.

Screen rotation?

[RevAaron]

Are there any packages that let you rotate the Zaurus's screen 90 degrees for using it in a landscape position? (almost a must for taking notes with such a tiny screen) Better yet, something like Nyditot's Virtual Display, which let's you not only rotate the display, but run it at different resolutions? (640x480 on the iPAQ for instance!)

Re:Screen rotation?

[zackZ]

Try opie-rotation. You could rotate Qtopia or could do a per-app rotation.

mplayer has been ported

[kerch]

Apparently, it's out there, but getting it to work sounds even more painful than regular MPlayer... :)

Bluetooth?

[bbn]

Where is the bluetooth support? Or WIFI? I need either to connect to internet and read my mail.

Bluetooth is a must, wifi would be neat. With bluetooth I can get internet access through my GSM phone with GPRS. I use this all the time with my ipaq and Ericsson T68i (or Nokia 7650).

I can drool all day long over how cool the applications are, but without easy internet access when I am on the move, the device is useless.

Re:Bluetooth?

[rusty0101]

WiFi drivers are built in, just about any CF based 802.11b card should work.

Bluetooth drivers can be installed from one of the Zaurus Zone Feed. I know that there are at least two sets of drivers. What addapters are available for bluetooth I have less knowledge about. i.e. I do not know if the drivers work well with the Palm SD/MMC bluetooth adapter or not.

-Rusty

minor nitpick...

[jx100]

Trillian's not a protocol like AIM or Yahoo. I'ts just an client for the protocols/services.

Re:When is the C700 coming out I want one too

[Technomancer]

And its a little pricey on Dynamism.

Would definitely be worth purchasing 5500 if...

[TechScared]

you could somehow retrofit 5600's battery onto 5500.

...but it's not a phone

[AugstWest]

I need a PDA. I need a cellphone. I don't want to carry 2 bricks around in my pockets, and deal with 2 batteries at all times, LIon or not...

Gadgets are very cool, and it's nice to have shell access and your unix commands in your pocket, but... What's Linux without network access?

Re:...but it's not a phone

[Anonymous Coward]

get a CF card with 802.11, BlueTooth or one of those new GSM cellphone CF cards.

Discount and Battery

[Anonymous Coward]

I think I might be able to clarify two issues mentioned above:

Battery for the SL-5500, from the HSN web page:

* Rechargeable 1700mAH Lithium-ion battery - ensures long and repeated use. It charges when connected to the cradle base unit

Looks like the battery for the 5500 and the 5600 are the same.

The HSN discount:

The HSN item number for the Zaurus 5500 is 694-341. The coupon number is HSN4897. The coupon is only good for first time buyers on HSN. The coupon is only good until 12 midnight 03/17/03 (tonight) EST. The coupon is only valid for puchases mase through the web site. The coupon is good for 15% off the purchase price upto a total of $50.00. As IceFox mentioned, the price plus the discount is 169.08. Plus S&H (8.95) for delivery in 10 days is $173.03. On the page where you enter you credit card information there is a fiels for entering the coupon number and a button for applying the discount ($29.00) to the purchase.

The HSN customer service number is 1-800-933-2887.

In case you couldn't tell, yes, I just bought one and yes, I bought it for the Linux and as a very portable minicomputer. I can't wait to be able to do something real with a PDA :-).

By the way, the 5500 has a processor speed and RAM pretty much equal to the speed and RAM of the laptop computer I used to make this post.

Wait.

[jensend]

I would definitely wait for a version with a PXA255 xscale processor instead of a PXA250- the PXA255, which is already out, has twice the memory clock of the PXA250. It was recently reported that the PXA255 @ 300 mhz is not only 20% faster than the PXA250 @ 400 mhz but also saves considerably on battery power.

Please port Linux to HP1910

[Deslock]

After using Pocket PC for a few months, I have mixed feelings about it. My old Palm was much more responsive and PPC's random system slow-downs (I run at 300 MHz roo), crashes (at least a few times/week), and ActiveSync weirdness are starting to irritate me.

I could go back to Palm... as a tool, it was superior to PPC. However, I like the fast CPU and large screen PPC has (can't get those features in a Palm except for the Clie NR series, which is big and heavy). The Zaurus software is cool, but like the Sony, it's too damn big.

I'd love to try Linux on the HP1910. It's only 4.2 ounces and has a much nicer screen than the Zaurus. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like much progress is being made on a port.

I've had a Zaurus for several months

[prostoalex]

and here are some of the reasons I did not like this PDA. Linux OS aside, the price-performance ratios are quite poor (well, for the mentioned price after the drop not too poor), but got tired of needing to recharge the thing after every major effort. Good toy, but nothing productive.

Re:I've had a Zaurus for several months

[TheKey]

prostoalex, You are the linking God! You're the #1 submitter in the hall of fame, you know.

Re:I've had a Zaurus for several months

[prostoalex]

Yeah, there's been a massive celebration of that event, I think I've on hof for a while.

Frustrate Me To No End

[SomeOtherGuy]

I have a Sharp, I have an Ipaq, I have a Dell Axim, I had a few palms. The SINGLE most frustrating thing (since I left palm) is always worrying about being more than a stones throw away from "the juice" to plug these things in after streaming music over my lan for about 60 minutes or so on a full charge. I am being turned into a nervous wreck thinking that something so cool can be so frustrating when I have to constantlly worry about recharging a battery that is "one of a kind". I wish it was more like my "old" mp3 player where I can just make sure I have a nice cache of 1900 MaH AA rechargeables at the ready to do a quick swap. Hooking up to the juice for 2 or 3 hours in between every 2 hours of use is not the solution.....Hell if I wanted that problem I could sling my IBM 240 in a back pack....(at least I would not have to scroll my SSH sessions to the left and hunt and peck with a stylus to navigate around...)

I know I ramble -- but this is frustrating to have so many hobbles in.....I have nightmares about charging batteries each night...My cellphone, my PDA's, my laptop, my cache of AA's....It is worse than a drug habit.

Re:Frustrate Me To No End

[ecki]

Get a Newton - it runs on AAA batteries and plays MP3 files and streams. Although only at 22kHz mono, the audio hardware doesn't do more.

eCoupons - HSN Coupons

[Anonymous Coward]

eCoupons has more HSN Coupons http://www.ecoupons.com/coupon-code/HSN

Uber-PDA Requirements

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not sure if anyone cares, but here goes. Here are the things that I belive are REQUIRED for me to go out and spend money on yet another PDA:

-Built-in wireless/bluetooth/whatever my campus is going to have next year.
Nothing better than surfing from anywhere on campus :). I'm sorry, but as you'll see below, I'm going to need the card slot for something else. It can't be taken up by a wireless card.

-Speedy enough to play movies
That includes ripped DVDs. (Don't ask me how I'd get ripped DVDs on a PDA. Maybe streaming would work.) I know that this is probably a little bit overboard, but if I'm going to spend money, this is what I want.

-Card slot that's compatible with PCMCIA hard drives
This way, I'll be able to play that ripped DVD or use any other huge file that I've got. ^_^

-USB support so I can hook up a real keyboard
Some PDAs already have this and it, while battery sucking, is nice. My only question is could you get a wireless keyboard so reduce the drain on the batteries even more. (There would be another set of batteries in the keyboard, doofus.)

-Longer battery life than 1 1/2 hours when on high load
Come on. If this is all the more battery life my PDA is going to give me, I might as well just carry my laptop around and buy another battery with the money I would have otherwise spent on a PDA.

-camera support???
Let's video tape those professors! The PDA would have to be able to do on-the-fly encoding. It's a good thing, once again, that I have that PCMCIA hard drive hooked up :).

These are the main points. Does anyone seem to have a problem with them? Too unrealistic? I don't think so, but they may be. Let's hear some feedback on the uber-PDA ^_^

westlord

He's right

[Anonymous Coward]

Nothing has come out that can best my 5yr old psion 5mx, this is really sad that things like this and the Newton are still more useful than newer products. It looks like at this rate I will not be replacing the psion soon. I mean they have stopped development and nothing can beat EPOC32 on a palmtop, and it used to sync quite well. Linux is not an embeded OS yet so why do we insist upon this. Honestly as a PocketPC like device it is better than the MS offering but far from elegant.

But?

[evilmuffins]

But does it run windows...

Zaurus for sale

[atkulp]

I hope this isn't considered "crude," but it seemed like a great audience. I have a Zaurus SL-5000 (developer 200MHz, 32MB version) for sale. It functions perfectly with the exception of the digitizer (touch screen). The display LCD works as it should, but you can't tap on the screen to interact with it (the digitizer overlay is actually cracked). The keyboard and all other buttons work, as do all the USB-related interfaces when docked. It would make an excellent stand-alone network device with a CompactFlash network card, or a long USB connection to a PC. Imagine it as a networked MP3 player (line out to a receiver), a data collector if connected to sensors (weather station maybe?), a drop-in-place web server -- many possibilities! It can even still function as a PDA as long as you only need key/keyboard input (and don't mind the crack over the display). I am thinking it's worth at least $85. If anyone has any interest in seeing pictures or making an offer, please let me know. I have all original packaging, manuals, cables, etc. I look forward to hearing from you! Thanks! -Arian Again, sorry if this offends anyone, but what better group of people to appreciate a mostly-functional Linux-based PDA than Slashdot!

Cheap?? Only if you live in America

[edxwelch]

$198.92 in America, probably $500 in Europe, if you can evan find one

More than one app (was: Re:I dont get it)

[Anonymous Coward]

I frequently have XMMS + Konqueror + ScummVM open at the same time, and I've never had any memory problem.
I've got a sl5000 (then 32 MB RAM) with OpenZaurus.
I really don't understand why 64 MB RAM would be better... Or do you want to run 10 or 15 apps at the same time ?

On OpenZaurus 3.1rc3.1, I've launched Contacts, Calendar, DrawPad, E-Mail, Text Editor, Today, too List, File Manager, Konsole, Help Browser, System Info, Appearance, and AQPkg (It's a new OZ install, I've got no third-part app installed for the moment). OZ started complaining about memory when starting "Backup And Restore". 21 MB used, 7 MB cached, 1,5 MB free... As long as the Z can handle 13 apps at the same time, I think you cannot decently say that you run out of memory with "more than one app"...

Re:More than one app (was: Re:I dont get it)

[rgrep]

And for those rare occasions where you may need to run 15+ apps at the same time - just create a swap file!

I resemble that remark

[ishmaelflood]

Typed on an Athlon 400 with (OK) 64 M of memory that dual boots NT4 and Mandrake 8.2.

Behind the curve

[cybpunks3]

I think the problem here is that Sharp is really slightly behind the curve on all the new PDA developments other than screen tech, and behind in the business model as well.

Wireless will soon be a built-in feature in just about every portable device and none of the Zaurus models are scheduled to include even bluetooth, so you'll have to sacrifice an expansion slot for that which could otherwise be used for an important purpose.

Plus, the 32MB SDRAM is just not progress. It should be at least 64MB of SDRAM by now. 64MB is not asking for much these days, really.

The only significant improvement here is the move to XScale.

But for those who might want to use the Zaurus as a media player, the interface to the screen is still a dumb, slow, CPU-drive frame-buffer. Add to that the XScale's lack of floating point and you have hardware that just won't want to handle DivX type codecs.

However, there are now graphics accelerators being built for PDAs in order to take more of the load off the CPU. Sharp should look into these.

Sharp is targeting these devices purely at niche enterprise users, but I feel the future will mean the blending of PDA with laptop.

When PDAs are running at 500+Mhz there is no reason for them not to support just about every class of application a laptop a few years ago could do, which includes 3D games and full-framerate video playback.

It won't be long before something like an IPOD which is like a dumbed down PDA that just plays media will evolve into a sub-$1000 laptop class machine that is designed for END USERS rather than the enterprise.

Steve Jobs has already stated that he thinks the Laptop is the future of hardware sales, and I think once you can offer something that gives you the basic functionality you want in a laptop within a PDA formfactor (more importantly, a PDA pricerange) then your sales will literally explode. Something like this eliminates your MP3 player, provides a portable video player, AND eliminates the need for a tablet PC/webpad also.

For most people on modest budgets, the idea of shelling out $1200+ for a laptop is just unacceptable, not in the era of $500 desktop machines... So a single device that can be the swiss-army-knife is going to be the killer app.

Eventually the industry will realize this, even if it has to happen by accident or something.

Bummer

[Anonymous Coward]

HSN runs MS otherwise I would order one. 25% of web sites with >98% of stolen credit cards. No thanx.

Re:Bummer

[PeterChenoweth]

And you actually own a credit card that DOESN'T have 100% online fraud protection??!?

Re:fp!

[Anonymous Coward]

Error 404 - file not found. STOOPID !

Sold Out - Re:I did!

[fetta]

The $29 after rebate version is sold out.

"new" Linux-based PDA alternative: Motorola A760

[ma2oliveira]

Greetings,

There is another contender in the Linux-based PDA arena: the Motorola A760.

It is also a GSM dual-band cellphone, supposedly coming out in late 2003.

I believe I read something on slashdot.org about it earlier, but can't find the URL. Here are other URLs with text on the device:

• Motorola press release;
• Geekstreet;
• I4U;
• BargainPDA;

ma2oliveira

not so fast...

[WotanKhan]

Back in my day, my 8086-based dual floppy pc was a cutting edge microcomputer. The Zaurus I just ordered from HSN certainly has more computingpower. Now if I could just hook some terminals to it...

Re:Coupon - sneakemail!

[Technomancer]

Just create new address, give it to HSN. And then delete the address when you receive first spam.
go to www.sneakemail.com

Re:Please answer this question...

[benzapp]

I have a PocketPC 2000 device, a Casio E125. Overall, its a great unit. A high quality screen, reasonably fast, compact flash slot...

But there seems to be one major problem that is really pissing me off. I just purchased a Linksys Compact flash 802.11b card. It works great, I can browse the web, albeit in a rather limited fashion. The Windows CE ICQ client works. Of course, MSN Messanger only works on PocketPC 2002.

But here it comes. THe only reason I got this card was to play mp3's off my network. So simple, but alas, I can find no way of accessing networked files on my device. Perhaps this is a shot in the dark, but its worth it. Please let me know if you can help.

Credit Card Declined

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone Else have this problem... They say they are out of stock now and they have no more....

ohh well..

Re:Credit Card Declined

[DanAnderson26]

Yea, exactly that, only they do not have a transaction number, and my bank shows no attempt to bill this to my account (which has more then enough to cover this).

I smell a rat. I guess I can just make sure I NEVER do business with these people.

Dan

Re:Credit Card Declined

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it took a while (ordered Monday), but my status now reads "ready to ship" and my credit card got the authorization request. Woohoo! I checked out openzaurus.org--very cool.

Full Laptop - lindows or perhaps sony?

[t482]

It may not fit your criteria but sony has some 2.xlb laptops
http://www.zdnet.com/supercenter/stories/ review/0, 12070,562439,00.html

Lindows is selling an $800 2lb+ laptop which gets good reviews
http://www.lindows.com/

Re:Full Laptop - lindows or perhaps sony?

[t482]

Also the 1.8 lb sony and a couple of other japanese vendors offer similar tiny laptops. You might get a better deal on ebay.

Re:Please answer this question...

[RevAaron]

I use Dynapad, an OS/computing environment for PDAs that I am working on. I've done some playing of MP3s over the network within it, but not in a more regular WinCE app.

Dynapad/Squeak has an MP3 decoding plugin for fast MP3 and mpeg decoding. I have a mp3 app that plays songs via the network using FTP. It basically downloads one song past the one you are listening to, deletes it when you are done. Poor man's streaming. ;P But then again, it uses regular MP3 quality rather than lower streaming quality. Works fine though! Dynapad works on both WinCE and Linux PDA (as well as most/all desktop platforms).

I'm not sure what a one could do as far as a regular WinCE user and regular WinCE apps. Have you looked around for apps that let you mount an FTP site/SMB/NFS and then just play the files through WMP? Does WMP do streaming?

Got it but missed WiFi card

[Anonymous Coward]

I got it, but damn I missed th $30 window for the WiFi card at CompUSA. Anyone know of killer deals for WiFi CF cards?

Hmm...

[StarKruzr]

I should finally get around to joining that. Now that I've purchased one of these (should be arriving sometime next week), I can take it with me and have a ball beaming packages back and forth with all the other members :)

Anyone have any experience with OpenZaurus? I'd jump on it as soon as I found it, but it doesn't seem to include a decent PIM suite like the Hancom one that comes with the Sharp ROM image.

If it's anything like the distro for the iPaq, I might think twice, as that's seemed to be a mite crashy every since I installed it.

Guess I did a fabulous job NOT backing up my WinCE contacts and notepad files first. :-/