Sharp To Ship New HD-equipped Zaurus In Japan

ctid writes "On 10th November, Sharp will release its new Zaurus PDA. The SL-C3000 includes a 4GB hard drive, a 416MHz Intel XScale PXA270 CPU and 64MB of RAM. All of that in a package weighing 298g! There is no news as to whether Sharp will release this ludicrously desirable toy in the West, but I'm not hopeful personally. Maybe we can rely on suppliers like dynamism.com (in the USA) or shirtpocket.co.uk (in the UK) to help us out?"

Comments

Weight

[erick99]

298 grams = 10.5 ounces.

Re:Welcome to 2002!

[Fweeky]

My Zaurus gets used ten times more than my iPAQ. 9 hours battery life, kickass VGA display, reasonable ickle keyboard, SD and CF. Lack of built in BlueTooth and WiFi's disappointing, but with a GB of SD it's not much of a hardship.

Crappy software? I wouldn't know, I've never used Sharp's Zaurus stuff (they have Opera? Since when?). I use pdaXrom, although OpenZaurus looks interesting if they ever port it to mine (SL-C860)

comparison data

[Khopesh]

looking at Palm, iPAQ, and iPod sizes

• SL-C3000: ? (screen: 3.7), 10.5oz, $lots
• Zire 31: 4.4 x 2.9 x 0.6, 4.1oz, $149
• Zire 72: 4.6 x 2.95 x 0.67, 4.8oz, $299
• Tungston E: 4.5 x 3.1 x 0.5, 4.6oz, $199
• Tungston T5: 4.8 x 3.1 x 0.6, 5.1oz, $399
• Tungston C: 4.8. x 3.1 x 0.7, 6.3oz, $399
• iPAQ rz1715: 4.48 x 2.75 x 0.5, 4.23oz, $280
• iPod 20GB: 4.1 x 2.4 x 0.6, 5.6oz, $299
• iPod mini 4GB: 3.6 x 2.0 x 0.5, 3.6oz, $249
• 1GB SD (for palms): $75

The picture makes it look like it is quite thick ... I wonder how it will compare to the above.

SD memory for palms is rapidly improving; soon, larger capacities will be cheaper, making a $250 1GB+ palm smaller and better than this toy.

(note, I have posted on this before)

Re:comparison data

[Kahm-Hime]

The SL-C3000 is 124mm by 87mm by 25mm (4.9x3.4x1)

It also has fully twice the screen resolution as the highest-rez device you listed (the T5, I believe), and closer to 4 times the rez of everything else. It also includes what is probably one of the best built in keyboards on the market, on top of having as much storage capacity as the iPod mini.

How does that make any of the above "better"?

You'd have to combine 1.5 T5's, the Palm C for the keyboard, AND the iPod mini into a single unit to match it. You'd have to add a CF card for connectivity to the Zaurus, but that still leaves you USB-host, the serial port, and an SD slot for expansion.

Some people use PDAs. Other people want 4-inch laptops. The Zaurus is definitely the latter.

Re:no wifi? Bummer. But 10.5 ounces! Woo!

[mattdm]

I don't understand their decision not to include wireless into the device.

How about (assuming you mean 802.11*): desire to have battery life longer than fifteen minutes? There's just not enough room in the tiny little thing for a big enough battery to make wifi useful.

This is not just a PDA...

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a handheld computer.

My Zaurus (an SL-C760, PXA255@400mhz, 64MB RAM, 128MB flash memory, CF LAN and CF 802.11b) is a shirt pocket sized replacement for lugging a laptop bag around. I don't synch, I use a Jumpdrive to move files between my 512MB SD card and a PC. I get about 8 hours of battery life, but again: It's not just a PDA, it's a handheld computer.

A variety of after market Operating Systems exist, including OpenZaurus, pdaXrom, and several tweaked versions of the Sharp ROM. Lots of tools are freely available that run on all these ROMS: BASH (busybox), nmap, ssh(d), gcc, Apache + PHP, vnc(d), ftp(d), rdp client, SQL client, smb(d), etc.

There are entire weeks that I use my clamshell Zaurus without using any other PC.

Re:This has potential as a laptop

[RevAaron]

I thought the same thing about my Sharp 5500. If there was some way I could plug in a full size keyboard in monitor, then I wouldn't need to carry my laptop home. Just plug the Zaurus into some old monitor and keyboard for intense work.

I used to do that with my Sigmarion 3. I used a VGA out card to display at 1024x768 on an external monitor, and an external USB keyboard and mouse. Just like using a desktop. The parts needed for this are: 1. a way to output VGA and 2. a USB host. The other PDA that can do this now is the Dell Axim X50V, which also has a VGA screen. But has built-in VGA out support, and with Nyditot's Virtual Display, you can have any high res display that the chip and monitor support. On my Sig 3's card the limit was 1024x768, but IIRC it is higher on the Dell. The new Axim also has USB host support.

The new Zaurus, unfortunately, cannot do this. It does have USB host support (or so we think it does), but there are no VGA out cards that would allow you to do this. There are a couple VGA out cards that let you pipe a presentation out through the Hancom app, but unfortunately it's the only app that supports the VGA out card- you can't use it to just display your desktop or whatever apps you are running. Alas, but disapointments are nothing new in the world of the Z.