Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Review Of Yopy 3700 Linux PDA

Posted by timothy on from the funny-name dept.

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.'"

4 of 225 comments (clear)

  1. Linux? by krog · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Isn't a PDA OS better suited to be a low-footprint gem like QNX?

    --
    Cretin - a powerful and flexible CD reencoder
    1. Re:Linux? by RevAaron · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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?

      Performance. A neat GUI layer. Much smaller memory use.

      On my brand new Zaurus SL-C760, there is 64 MB of *RAM* built-in. Why? This isn't "RAM" in the sense as it is on WinCE/PocketPC, where it's split between "program RAM" and stoarage space. It has a hopping 64 MB of dedicated to this, with 128 MB of Flash for storage. I just rebooted my C760 to find out the amount of RAM Linux+QPE takes out of the box: 18 MB! Compare that to 2-3 MB for WinCE, something similar for QNX, and something even smaller for PalmOS. (Granted, PalmOS leaves a lot lacking...) ...and you PalmOS folks thought WinCE was bad! :)

      --

      Working toward a usable PDA environment in the spirit of Newton OS: Dynapad
  2. Vaporware no more! by Rudeboy777 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This thing has been in development a looooong time, here's a mention of it in an April 2000 Slashdot article: (No release date announced indeed)

    --

    From hell's heart I fstab at /dev/hdc

  3. But the Zaurus isn't really a Linux platform by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    I would love to have a true Linux PDA that allows me to run my current Linux software. Unfortunately, the Zaurus does not satisfy my needs, because the Zaurus isn't really a Linux platform.

    The Zaurus is a Qtopia platform.

    Qtopia is a GUI front-end that runs on top of Linux.

    Software written for the Zaurus is written for Qtopia. It will not run on a non-Qtopia distribution of Linux.

    Qtopia is proprietary. It is owned and maintained by Trolltech. It cannot be forked, at least, not if you hope to be able to run any non-GPLed software on your Zaurus.

    To say that the Zaurus is a Linux platform, is like saying that the Macintosh is a BSD platform. In both cases, it is technically correct, yet wrong in practise. In both cases, your software requires an additional front-end (Qtopia or OS/X) in order to run. In both cases, you are locked in to one company's platform, because your software will not run on other versions of Linux or BSD.

    Now I don't care if people want to buy the Qtopia-based Zaurus, anymore than I care if they want to buy the OS/X-based Macintosh.

    But people should be aware of what they are getting.