Slashdot Mirror
Sharp Plans To Pull Zaurus From U.S. Market
Eugenia writes "Facing stiff competition and low sales, a Sharp representative has informed InfoSyncWorld that the company has decided to fully withdraw its Zaurus SL line of Linux-based handhelds from the U.S. market and focus on its home market in Japan. The recent similar withdraws of Sony and Toshiba pretty much left PalmOne and RIM fighting alone HP and Dell in a saturated PDA market inundated with U.S. brands. People don't seem to be willing to pay a premium for gadgets and alternative systems, and primarily in the corporate market customers prefer to buy from the same suppliers as for their corporate hardware."
hell maybe if it had a ethernet jack on it
Actually, it's pretty easy to put a CF Wifi card in one (I've got an SL-5500) and use it to surf the web and check email when you're out and about. They're a lot smaller than a laptop and much easier to carry around.
Oh, and full size keyboards are available.
The Zaurus line is a great one; I've had three models (5000D, 5500, 5600). However, my Treo does everything that the Zaurus can do, and comes with a phone! Since the Treo is a non-MS device, it also satisfies my desire not to support Microsoft. Of course, the Treo 650 will be even better. ;)
Find out about the Lexus Rx400h Hybrid!
I was up till recently a SL-5500 owner. It was a great PDA. However Sharp's software support was terrible. They had great hardware with great function but poor software support.
The OSS community took-up the slack the best they could by releasing revised ROMs and even roms built from the ground up like Open Zaurus.
Another issue I had was lake of sync support. The sync feature was flaky at best.
So I really think it's a bad move on sharp's part to discontinue US sales. The zaurus is one of those devices that almost was and still can be the killer device.
On a side note. The Zaurus is the best handheld I have ever used for WiFi site surveys!
What could possibly go wrong?