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Sharp Zaurus SL-5600 PDA Review

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the hardware-to-lust-after dept.

An anonymous reader sent us a link to a review of the Sharp Zaurus SL-5600 PDA. This Linux based handheld with a built in qwerty keyboard with decent connectivity. As with most PDAs, there are a lot of tradeoffs that have to be made yet. Read the review to see what they are.

1 of 207 comments (clear)

  1. I had the 5500 and returned it... by no_such_user · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I bought the 5500 when HSN was clearing them out a few months ago... but I ended up returning it. While I really loved being able to hold linux in my hand, I quickly realized that it just wasn't a replacement for my Palm Vx.

    The most limiting factor was battery life... which the 5600 claims to improve. Any linux geek who will play with one of these things will be playing HARD... ogg decoding, game playing, etc. These things burn up battery life, and you quickly need to make a run for the nearest AC plug.

    The other thing that discouraged me was filesystem management. Installing packages wasn't smooth and required some fancy footwork to install them on CF/MMC cards. And if you drain your battery and don't recharge within 24 hours (perhaps less), you'll lose anything not in flash ROM or on a memory card. Sure it's the same with any other PDA... but my palm can go for weeks w/o a charge... and I can recharge it with a 9v battery if I'm desperate.

    There are hacks to setup backups to a CF card or whatever, and hacks for wireless connectivity, and hacks for getting X apps to run, and hacks... and hacks... but you start to realize that the entire thing is about hacks... it's not clean. It made me miss my Newton. Flexibility? No... but sure was slick!

    Two things would have made me keep it:
    1. Better battery life (fixed in 5600?)
    2. Ability to boot off the CF card and turn the device into a full-speed, fully functioning palm emulator (the ones I tried had serious limitations). A dual-boot pda!

    Just my $.02 - I look forward to trying again in a couple of years :)