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Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 Today?

Posted by timothy on from the mine-still-works-well dept.

TheAdmin writes "A few years ago the first Linux-based Zaurus, the SL-5500, was released for some $600 by Sharp. Today, it only costs $140 in some places online. This article at TuxTops reviews the 5500 from the point of view of trying to figure out how this model fares against today's PDAs and if it's still a good purchase after all these years, especially at this low price. And so I bought one recently because I needed a full-fledged pocket Linux at my workplace where I work as an admin. I just added a $30 Linksys WCF12 WiFi card (works out of the box after upgrading the SL-5500 ROM to version 3.10) which I use with SSH and by utilizing Zaurus' thumb-board. Works great and it's much more portable than a laptop, especially when all you need is some email and SSH on the go."

3 of 163 comments (clear)

  1. If its SSH you vant by putko · · Score: 4, Informative

    May I suggest you get it from the source?

    --
    http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_law/when_to_s tone_your_children/dt21_18a.html
  2. Just Sold Mine by rmjohnso · · Score: 5, Informative

    I actually just sold my Zaurus SL-5500 on eBay. I sold it with my Linksys WCF11 wireless card. I got about $125 for the combination, which is what I set the minimum to on eBay. I got rid of mine for a few reasons:

    1. The battery life with the wireless card was horrible, and that was when the battery was new.

    2. To have anything new, you had to use OpenZaurus. Not that OZ is bad, but it means that Sharp basically stopped updating anything for it. Trolltech was supposedly going to release an updated QT ROM for the 5500, but I never saw it materialize.

    3. Back to the battery, it was a bit old, so it had a harder time holding a charge.

    4. Getting it setup to communicate to the PC under Windows or Linux always seemed to a lot harder than it should have been. I always got it working, but it always took a while.

    5. This was the big reason. I just stopped using it because of the other 4 reasons and because I almost always have my work laptop with me. I can pop my laptop out of suspend, fire up Outlook, and I have my Calendar, Address Book, e-mail, etc. just as fast. Yes, I would prefer to carry the Zaurus over the laptop, but since I always have the laptop for other work reasons, why do I need a PDA?

    --
    "Extremism in the pursuit of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue." --Barry Goldwater
  3. zaurus by mikers · · Score: 4, Informative

    They are okay... I think it is a nice little PDA, and pretty cheap right now. Also big user group behind it who is pretty hardcore into linux.

    Pros:
    - CF and SD card simultaneously
    - Nice screen
    - Nice keyboard hiding feature
    - Even if the display crashes, you can still SSH into it! And then just restart the display driver
    - The linux behind the framebuffer is rock solid (uptimes of > 2 months).
    - Very hackable

    Cons:
    - Only some CF cards work, and only SD memory cards work (not wifi SD for example). Limited support for CF chipsets (depends on manufacturer).
    - Battery life tends to be a little on the low side
    - Wifi card really sucks the battery dry
    - Thumb keyboard is really slow for doing CLI (and painful after a few lines).
    - Heavy changes in software base (like structure) right now, so the developers are breaking things almost as fast as old problems are fixed. *should* stabilize soon.
    - IR PDA keyboards (like targus) kindof suck on it, I bought one but find it frustrating to type on... Press two keys are the same time and only one shows up on the zaurus, but always a surprise which one!

    Wishlist:
    - Longer battery
    - Built in bluetooth (for external keyboard)