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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.
Heard that the C700 was coming in late 2003 to North America. At least thats what techtv said at some point in January.
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
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.
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.
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"
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.
Do you changes clothes while making the "chee-chee-cha-cha-choh" transformation sound?
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.
HSN.com don't ship outside USA.
No, I did not read the f***ing article!
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
Cheap UK and US VPS
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.
I'm excited about the 5600 for my use and still recommend the 5500 for general development and use.
Go Sharp!
-- @rjamestaylor on Ello
Sounds like the open-source VOIPs are finally in for some serious usage.
:^)
Might I point your attention to: tkcPhone by theKompany.com?
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.
> 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 :-(
... 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.
... 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.
> - 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
> 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
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
Minor nit-pick, the Sharp site gives the memory as 32Mb SDRAM and 64Mb Flash.
I hereby inform you that I have NOT been required to provide any decryption keys.
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.
:) The battery life could definitely be a problem though -- can't wait to try a 5600!
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 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.
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:
ma2oliveira