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Review Of Yopy 3700 Linux PDA
SecondToughest writes "Gizmodo has a recent post referring to a review of the new Yopy 3700 Linux-based PDA. The reviewer seems to like it: 'Overall, this is beautiful hardware. The design is compact when not in use, but when opened the Yopy is quite user friendly. The really great thing about this PDA is the presence of both MC and CF card slots. To me, this is almost the perfect PDA design.'"
Is this a joke:
"At this point the Yopy is only designed to sync with the Windows Operating System."
So I am supposed to dual-boot, first developing my own software in Linux, then boot into windows just to load it onto the device. NO THANK YOU. Zaurus it is.
There's gotta be a cheaper way to make a good Linux PDA. That's what's keeping me from buying a PDA... I'd rather carry around my custom ITX system with a 5" LCD.... Sorry.
With the screen down the Yopy is about the same depth as a paperback book
I'm sorry, but 69 × 103 × 24.7mm means that this pda is about 14.7mm too thick for me. IMHO a pda should easily fit in a pocket.
Wenn ist das Nunstueck git und Slotermeyer? Ja! Beiherhund das Oder die Flipperwaldt gersput.
For them:
- It must do all the general PIM stuff well
- It must be stable
- It must be feature rich
- It must support whatever media they currently use (MMC, SD etc.etc)
- It must sync with their computer (note they say "computer" when they generally mean "windows").
The fact that it's Linux based is not going to be a major selling point. When your data is on MC and CF cards, thats a major selling point.A story: One of my co-workers asked me what I thought about the up and coming Linux based Motorola phone. My comment was that the fact it was running Linux makes absolutely no difference. If Motorola implement the same horribly awkward , difficult to use and ugly interface that they have then nothing will have really changed.
The underlying OS is largely irrelevant, it's what runs on top that makes all the difference.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
That's the summary. You need to click on the "Page 2" link to get to the full review (it's not exactly easy to spot, yet another site that covers itself in banner ads and becomes unusuable as a result.)
Sure, if you're willing to pay the license for it and pass those costs on to the consumer.
Linux has become the way to go embedded on the cheap. If you don't need an RTOS, what in QNX are you paying for?
If I have been able to see further than others, it is because I bought a pair of binoculars.
It seems that PDAs are in two camps. The original Palm philsophy of "simple-is-better" and the "full-fledged computer" camp, where complete OS functionality and compatibility is desired.
Plus, "it runs Linux" and we all know how important *that* is...
Until someone can give me some really compelling reasons to upgrade from my old Handspring, I will continue to use my money to purchase more reasonable hardware upgrades: that is to say, more RAM for the laptop, bigger drives for the desktop, etc.
either haven't pushed very hard to get their OS into handhelds, or they have tried but eventually gave up
From their website they have implemented QNX into intelligent assist devices, which are kind of toned down handhelds. It seems that not only would it be perfectly feasible to put it on a handheld, but many of the methods they use could benefit almost all other OSs.
Depends. With Linux there is no license cost for the OS, with QNX there is. So if the cost of the extra memory to hold a bigger OS footprint, per unit, is less than the OS license, per unit, you'd go with the extra memory and Linux.
You appear to have missed the 2nd page, which has an interview with the people behind it.
Considering how the Yopy runs X11 as it's display layer, it's a bit of a fudge to say that the Zaurus has a larger developer community than the Yopy. There are more Z-specific developers than there are Yopy-specific, considering how something close to the majority of Zaurus apps are somewhat clumsily adapted from X11/Qt, no reason one can't simply count a clumsily adapted X11 app as a Yopy app. :P
:D
That said, the Yopy will likely fail. It's expensive and it doesn't do that much that anything else does. If you need the occasional remote X session, you can do that already with Windows CE or PocketPC (via XFree86 for CE) or on the Zaurus under a QPE or FB X server.
The 400 MHz XScale (which is a PXA 250) in the 5600 isn't really faster than the 206 MHz in the Yopy or SL-5500. The 5600 probably gets a bit better battery life for it, though. There's been a lot of misinformation about the PXA-250, and the speed of it in comparison to the 206 MHz StrongARM isn't just some retarded move by MS, which a lot of folks seem to think here and elsewhere. Seems stupid Sharp would switch the 5600 to a PXA 255, but they probably have a lot of manufactured and unsold units with the 250 preventing such a switch.
IIRC, Dell did that with their Axims- switched from the PXA 250 to the 255 rather quietly. Granted, they sell a lot more Axims than Sharp does SL-5x00s.
as for me, I just got a SL-C760...
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
200MHz is only slow when running Windows CE. The Tungsten is regarded as pretty much the quickest PDA (from the users point of view) yet only has a 177MHz processor.
Its not how many Hz you got, its what you do with them!
Okay, now let's talk about the areas for improvement. Once I mastered the built in software, I was pretty much stuck. There are a few games included but that's about it. Until Yopy gets some Linux developers to help them out, there is very little software available. I also wasn't able to use my wireless card because of the lack of drivers. As I mentioned earlier, the lack of software isn't strictly a Yopy issue. Linux Operating systems for PDAs will only be as strong as the development community behind it. That brings up the next issue: at this point the Yopy is only designed to sync with the Windows Operating System.
So to sum up:
Very little software available
Needs drivers
Only syncs with Windows
So what is the company hoping for?
- Linux geeks buy Yopy because it runs Linux
- Said geeks churn out software and drivers for it, because that's how it works in the open source world
- Sales increase because the Yopy is now attractive to the masses
- Profit!!!
Why would the average PDA user purchase this instead of a Palm or Windows PDA? What can the Yopy do that existing systems can't? I am interested to see how this turns out..."Overall, I'm quite impressed with this PDA. If this was a Palm or Pocket PC PDA, I'd say this is close to my perfect PDA."
So everything is good about it except for the OS.
He also says its "almost as stable" as the Palm OS.
If this is such a great piece of hardware then why not go all out and put Palm OS on there?
There target market obviosly is not linux users (lack of linux desktop support). what gives?
Now, a direct USB connection would be way cool for the Zaurus. I know that you can buy a cable for about US$30 that plugs into the bottom of the Zaurus and into a USB port, which means you no longer have to use the cradle to connect it to your PC.
That just allows you to do the connection to the PC without a cradle- it doesn't allow you to use USB devices with your Z. That said, for more than $30, you can get a USB Host CF Card, allowing your Z to use USB devices for which it has drivers. Call me nuts, but I'd rather have CF- getting USB if I really wanted it. Imagine an ugly and slow USB->Wifi adapter taped to the back of your PDA...
USB really isn't meant for a PDA. Who wants cables and other stuff hanging off your PDA? CF works well because it can be integrated well at a small cost in size.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
sounds like a bad design for a PDA. Memory cards are cheap and people would rather buy whatever kind than have bigger, fatter device. CompactFlash port, in particular is very bulky. As for plugins like a camera, USB would be a better interface. Doesn't it already have a USB port for the desktop?
.5cm^2. The serial port is already going to be built into the processor anyways.
There is a huge difference between a USB host controller and a USB device. In order to be a USB 1.1 compliant host you much be able to source 5VDC 1.2A Most PDAs are 3.3V internally, and carry nowhere near that amount of current capability. Yes, the are ways to get around this, and the are new standards on the way, but what good does that do now if you can put USB on the box?
CF is a great interface for PDAs. It's open and it's just a miniturized PCMCIA bus. That means it's really easy for manufacturers to take their existing designs and produce them is a smaller CF card for factor.
Besides the technical reasons why USB isn't that great of an idea, there are other issues as well. With the CF wifi card for my Zaurus, the antenna sticks out of the slot a little bit, and that's it. I shudder when I imagine using a USB wifi adaptor with it. I'd be forced to have some oddly-shaped little box dangling by a cord from my PDA. How much of a pain in the ass would that be to take in and out of your pocket?
IRDA is also not really good for anything. People have to wiggle their devices for minutes just to send a business card. Forget about trying to HotSync with a laptop. Save that space for bluetooth or 802.11.
Actually IRDA is really useful. It's about the only fully standardized way to exchange data between almost all modern PDAs. It's useful for a lot more things than busness cards too. I can just hold my Zaurus next to the IR port on my laptop. A little popup tells my windows sees the Zaurus, and then I can send it whatever files I want. No wires to carry around, no extra drivers to install. It would be silly not to implement IRDA. The amount of hardware resources required is tiny. It's probably less than 1cm^2 of board space. Maybe less than
If you don't like it, don't use it, but IRDA is not the reason this thing doesn't have built-in wifi.
Life is too short to proofread.
I like Linux a lot, but some of you advocates need to get a dose of reality. Linux is in fact highly customizable, but it's not easily customizable. What's the percentage of PDA users in general who can follow the steps you described without help?
I've unfortunately went over this a dozen times with plenty of other people.
I know it may be hard to come to terms with this, but WinCE is a real OS too. Not just an app launcher.
You can multitask. You can mount NFS and SMB shares. Play MP3s, MPEGs, DivXs, whatever. Unlike on the Zaurus, you can get *real* handwriting recognition- not just *character recognition,* to which you are confined with any Linux PDA (at least for now). You can code in a million languages on the device it self under CE- and unlike on Linux PDAs, it's a lot easier to find a well-adapted port rather than something barely shoehorned in. Apache, FTPd, SSH, telnet, X11 (remote and local), VNC, rdesktop- I've all done it from CE.
It's a failing of the current PDA Linuxes to make you create a swap file to get more RAM rather than an advantage. In WinCE, you just simply adjust the amount allocated to RAM vs Storage via a slider; on current PDA Linux, you have to install a hacked kernel (with hardcoded values) or create a swap space in your storage area.
WinCE is very, *very* far from perfect. But so is Linux, on the PDA and otherwise. Anyone who thinks that WinCE or Linux are perfect is delusional.
I've run bash on CE. Big deal. And, unlike with PDA Linux, I don't have to put up with substandard software. It may come as a shock, but a lot of folks want their PDAs to work well as PDAs and not just show-off toys at LUG meetings.
My current main PDA is a Zaurus SL-C760. I'm not some whacky MS zealot. It's a shame so many Zaurus users are just Linux cheerleaders. The Zaurus could be a great platform, but no amount of talking about will make the PDA software available for the Z any better.
Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
Just about every PDA around today has the specs of a high-end UNIX workstation of a few years ago. Your average PDA today has a 200MHz RISC chip, 64Mbytes of RAM, hundreds of megabytes of Compact Flash storage, etc. Many UNIX workstation had 1/10th the compute power, memory, and disk storage.
Furthermore, Linux and X11 aren't "high-footprint" at all by modern standards. Sure, on your desktop machine, they use lots of memory; that's because they can: people configure every feature into them and then they go on using lots of cache. On a PDA, you can squeeze a Linux kernel (I don't know about 2.4, but certainly older kernels) into a few hundred kbytes, and the X11 server and toolkit into less than a Mbyte. That's less than Windows CE or Qt/Embedded. It probably is even less than PalmOS 5. In fact, if you really want a small footprint OS, ucLinux is another option; it can even run on old Palm hardware (no MMU).
Eh? 1GB CF cards are here now, and $/MB cost is about the same as smaller sizes. Unless you want a giant sized PDA that takes a 2.5" drive, the only tiny hard drive that I'm aware of is IBM's microdrive which is CF compatible anyway...