Customer Reviews

Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 PDA

5 star:		(46)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

The Sharp Zaurus Linux-based PDA is both extremely powerful, and easy to use.

The Zaurus's fast CPU, high quality full-color LCD, and excellent headphone sound output makes for an impressive photo viewer, MP3 and MOD music player, and video-clip displayer.

The slide-out keyboard has completely weaned me from using the handwriting system, which is unfortunate, because a lot of work was obviously put into it. Not only does the handwriting system have a help mode where you can practice strokes, but you can actually train it new, or alternate strokes for each character. But when you can type so quickly, why bother writing?

The dual expansion slots are great, allowing me to use an SD card for software installation, and still have my CF slot free for a RAM card full of MP3s or a network adapter.

Honestly, I was impressed by the capabilities of the Java system. In my opinion, Java has always been too slow and cumbersome to use, and the thought of running it on a 206MHz PDA seemed ridiculous. But from what I've seen of Java applications (even games!) running on the Zaurus, I'm beginning to realize there's a lot of potential in Java.

As a desktop Linux user, I'm also tickled to have the power and stability of my favorite OS underneath the hood. For the extremely geeky, you can get Java, C and C++ compilers that run ON the Zaurus!

The "Qtopia" environment and applications are as intuitive as they are nice to look at. The PIM applications have all the functionality I'm used to from my Palm device, and then some.

Until I can afford a wireless modem to stick in one of my Zaurus' two expansion slots, I've been using a Compact Flash ethernet dongle to get online while watching TV.

After using offline browsers on the Palm, I was shocked to find a full-fledge, desktop-quality browser built right into my Zaurus: Opera.

Opera's zoom-out feature can't be lived without. Frustratingly, most websites assume you have a screen capable of at least 800x600. On a small PDA screen, this would mean constantly scrolling left and right as you try to read. Under Opera, you can zoom out to get a better overview of the page, and still be able to read all of the text!

I've only used the Sync software (Qtopiadesktop - I used the Linux version) a few times, since my pattern for PDA usage is to use them as stand-alone devices. It was quite intuitive, though, as it looked and felt just like a larger version of the PIM software built-into the Zaurus.

Finally, while there's obviously very little 3rd party software for the Zaurus so far, since it just came out, there's been what seems to be exponential growth. I've already installed almost 20 new applications, including games, a streaming Internet radio player, and an embedded version of the popular Linux browser, "Konqueror."

Software installation is usually a snap, too. Just as with Palm, all that's usually needed is one file downloaded off a website. Run the graphical installer, wait a few seconds, and the new app. is there, ready to run!

All in all, it's a great system. Powerful and slick hardware, in a beautiful form-factor, running powerful and slick software.

I have to admit, I was very skeptical about this PDA because of the Linux OS. I have been an avid user of Pocket PC since its inception. I've had an Ipaq and most recently, and Audiovox Maestro. Both machines were awesome however they were never for me because I am very input intensive and I hated the on screen keyboard and the graffiti. So I decided to take the plunge with the new Zaurus. I couldn't be happier. The screen is the best I've seen and Linux is easy to get used to. In my opinion the keyboard is perfect for my needs. Thumb typing is a snap and I now don't feel like I have to enter every new contact or new appointment on my desktop first, then sync with my PDA. The Opera Web browser is also very nice with the ability to shrink/enlarge the webpage as needed. Word, Excel and Powerpoint compatible programs round out my needs plus there are plenty of extras to boot. Sharp did a great job and I highly recommend this PDA over the others.

First and foremost, if you are looking for purely Personal Information Management (PIM) functions and not generally inclined towards Linux, then do yourself a favor and buy yourself a Palm Pilot.

The Zaurus is basically a mini Linux workstation with a lot of functionality you would normally find only on a desktop. With the Zaurus, you can:
* Browse the web with a scalable and full featured browser
* Read and edit MS-Office documents (Word, Excel and Powepoint)
* Write and execute scripts and programs (including Java)
* Play music and video
* Control your desktop Windows PC (using VNC software)

It is so powerful that you can actually use it as a Web or file server (using Apache and Samba). I use my Zaurus to administrate my Linux server and Oracle database server when I am away from my desk.

Plus there are tons of applications, utilities, games, etc., that you can download. Zaurus has a very active user community forum (check the links from the Sharp Zaurus official web sites) where you can get a lot of useful tips from.

Having said all that, the PIM functions that came with the Zaurus were pretty poor compared with the Palm Pilot. This lead me to hang on to my Palm Vx for dear life. I even took the drastic step of downloading and installing a Palm Pilot emulator (called QPose) onto my Zaurus. The performance hit on the Zaurus was so bad that I had to delete QPose and instead carry both my Palm Vx and Zaurus with me.

However, now that Sharp has released a new ROM (v3.10, as of May 15, 2003, see below) the PIM functions have vastly improved. So much that I am now inclined to keep my Palm at home and take only the Zaurus along.

Upon getting your Zaurus, do yourself a favor and install the terminal and file manager applications that come in the CD. The terminal application enables you to do a lot of tweaking and is mandatory if you plan to use the Zaurus to its full capabilty. It actually comes with a basic Linux shell environment and comes with such neat utilities as vi editor, ftp and telnet clients, ping, and a large number of Linux/Unix tools.

Another application I found very useful is called "rotation". It enables you to rotate the application screens by 90 degrees, making such things as web browsing, file editing and using the terminal appication a lot more pleasing and functional. You can download the "qpe-rotation" and "qt-embedded-rotation" files (ipks) from the ZaurusSoft website.

Also, an important suggestion to existing SL-5500 users:
Sharp has just released the latest ROM (v3.10, May 15, 2003) which makes the SL-5500 look and behave like the newer SL-5600. I *strongly urge* SL-5500 users with the old ROM (v2.38) to download and install this new ROM. The user interface with the new ROM is a lot cleaner and neater and has more stable applications (including a vastly improved Opera browser and much better PIM applications).

I've been trying to use the Zaurus for the last week or so. The product has turned out to be a mixed blessing.

The Good:
1) This is without a doubt the ultimate programmer's PDA.
2) You can write code, compile, and execute on the Zaurus (hard to believe but it's true).
3) There is quite a bit of good free software, including neocalc, which is a great calculator.
4) Amazon.com had a stellar deal on it.
5) Contrary to some of the reviews I've seen, the screen is very nice looking.

The not so good:
1) The software to sync with a PC (Win2K in this case) stinks. It crashes, hangs, intermittently refuses to connect, and requires special knowledge not included in the manual to get it to work. I've tried both Intellisync and Qtopia Desktop. Intellisync appears to be a hopeless basket case, but I was able to get Qtopia Desktop to work as long as I didn't have too many files on my CF (too many files causes a nasty crash on the PC side). Too bad I need to sync with Outlook.
2) I've managed to fry a 128Meg SD Flash by leaving it in during a hard reset of the Zaurus. That shouldn't happen, but it did.
3) The Hancom Suite (MS compatible Word processor, spreadsheet, and presentation viewer) is weak but usable.
4) The battery life is short (especially with a Wireless LAN adapter).
5) The MP3 software wouldn't play any of my variable bit rate files. I don't believe there is anything terribly unusual about them (other than they have been encoded using LAME).
6) The MP1 video is very slow and choppy at Video CD bit rates (like ~1 frame/sec). I've found it difficult to get a bit rate the works well for me when trying to take full advantage of the screen resolution. Perhaps the DiVX decoder that is being developed will solve this problem.

Even with these serious problems, I'd still consider it a great tool for a programmer and will give it 4 stars. For non-programmer types, I'd give it 1 star.

I separated my review into the following items...

Screen - The screen is excellent with very good visibility in various lighting conditions and accurate with the stylus.

Keyboard - Very usable, you won't write a book with it but it's faster then any handwriting recognition or pick board. I have experimented with the handwriting recognition and it appears to work ok too, but I'd rather "thumb type". You have many options for data input with this device.

Performance - Fast and stable! I was very impressed hopping around to the different apps with no wait time what so ever. As a stress test I started playing some MP3's, opened a spreadsheet, fired up a java animation demo and the CPU handled it fine not even breaking a sweat at 30% utilization.

Expandability - The compact flash support is excellent. Just throw in a CF card with data and your set to go. A CF with MP3's works great! I haven't tried any of the CF wireless network cards, Proxim wireless cards, or modems but it appears ready to go.

Applications - It's loaded with a lot of nice applications out of the box... Spreadsheet App, PowerPoint presenter, Word Processor, MP3/MPG Player, Email, Web Browser, Games, etc. Not to mention the growing list of applications on the internet...

Design - Very nice and solid. It feels extremely light, and has a nice size to it. The pull out keyboard is ingenious.

If you have no interest or knowledge with Linux, you'll be fine using it there is little learning curve. It's very intuitive and easy to get around. If your a Linux guru, you'll know what to do. <grin> You will have a big smile at boot up with message "Entering Runlevel: 5"...

I just received mine two days ago and after 'playing' with it I can tell you that it's an extremely powerful PDA. Im not a Linux user nor do I know Java. I simply needed a quick way to input data because I'm in grad school. It took about 15 minutes to get used to the keyboard, but after that I was away.

It comes with a Word application that is compatible with MS Word. So while on the bus I was able to work on my research and simply sync it back to my main document on my PC.

Also I purchased a wireless network card because my dorm is wired and Im able to surf the Internet at blazing speeds. I even cut and pasted a Map into my Word application with no problems!

Truly this is a great little 'computer' and the price is good. I look forward to more applications in the future..

This review is with reference to the Zaurus SL-5500 along with the Linksys wireless CF card

First the pros...
(1) Screen is very easy to see and the colors are just gorgeous.
(2) Sound via the headphones is outstanding.
(3) Auto scaling of images is impressive.
(4) The web browser scaling is very good and the text is readable even at it's smallest setting.
(5) Keyboard is quite comfortable and I find myself using it more than handwriting.
(6) Transfer from Palm is very easy - just beam the entire category over and it takes care of the rest.
(7) Availability of software is quite good... have ssh, wap browser amd mysql running on it. Download the command tool and you get your hands on all the standard UNIX utilities, including tar, grep and vi.

Now the cons:
(1) More memory would certainly help. Given that this thing has a built in mp3 player and a mpeg player - 64MB of usable memory would be good. Of the 64, only 32 is really available.
(2) I would have prefered a regular Type II PCMCIA slot over the CF slot, but then again this is a pet peeve of mine.
(3) The built in PIM applications do need some work.

Overall impression... It's a really nice piece of engineering. The fact that it has a built in keyboard without sacrificing screen estate in my view makes it stand out from the Handspring, CE and Palm devices. That coupled with Linux makes it a winning combination in my book.

I purchased the Zaurus SL-5500 PDA a few weeks ago and I have to say that this is the best PDA on the market. I've used an iPaq but it does not compare to the Zaurus. The Zaurus has most software to be expected by a high-end PDA. It also includes a Java virtual machine to allow Java programs to run. This enables a tremendous amount of Java software to be easily ported to the Zaurus. You can use the USB base included to connect to the internet. The web browser Opera includes Javascript support and allows easy zooming so you can view web pages made for desktop PC's easily. There is a wireless modem option and wireless ethernet compact flash adapter available. The web site www.myzaurus.com has commercial and free software that receives updates daily. Most programs take up very little space on FLASH to get the most out of the FLASH space available. The keyboard is fast and easy to use. For those who are techno-geeks there is a Bash shell available with most commands including telnet and ftp. Emacs can even be downloaded! Heck, they even have a port of Quake for this thing! For the non-techno-geeks the Zaurus is easy to use, my wife has had no problems! Programs are simple to install. Just download the .ipk file to the Zaurus with the included syncronization software and then click Install button on the Zaurus, couldn't be easier. The Zaurus is not just a PDA, it is a huge step forward for the replacement of your desktop PC!

I've had a development version of the Zaurus for a few months now and have to say I really like it. Not that it's perfect, far from it, but it seems like a very well put together PDA.

First, the keyboard is usable. I used to use a Psion Revo Plus, and the keyboard on the Zaurus is not nearly as usable as the Revo's, but it's still better than nothing. And it's hidden when it's not in use. There are other input methods available (a pickboard, an onscreen keyboard, and a graffiti like system), but the keyboard beats them all.

The display is very nice, better than the IPAQs I've played with, and the backlight is strong. There's no built in speaker, so any MP3 playback will have to be done through headphones. The unit seems able to handle all sorts of media (MP3, Mpeg Video, and there is a divx :-) player).

The bundled PIM apps aren't quite as good as the apps built into the IPAQ, but the browser and email applications are excellent. Opera provides the browser, and the email is full featured, with IMAP capabilities.

All in all, not a bad PDA. A definite alternative to the IPAQ, and not a purchase you'd regret.

Simply put, I prefer the Linux operating system over both the Palm OS and MS Windows OS. If this was a Linux world, I don't think there would even be a dispute, since the software availability limitations would no longer be an issue. I like the stability of Linux vs. the limitations of any of the Palm based products, and wouldn't even put them in the same catagory for comparison, unless you are only wanting a basic PDA function-wise. That leaves the MS based products as the only viable competitors, none of which, in my opinion, offer the same extensive packaging as the Zaurus. The Zaurus is convenient, and out of any of the actual hand-held computer-types, is the only one thus far that incorporates a built-in keyboard and dual expansion slots which support both SD and CF memory cards. This in and of itself almost makes it worth it, as it is much easier to enter data as opposed to the hand-writing program. The multi-media functionality is a plus as well, and the unit has a pretty complete suite of software which comes with it, as well as additional software which is available. I also like the Hancom spreadsheet, WP and presenter, all of which are compatable with other common suite programs when sync-ing with your PC. The OS and additional software is by far more open than MS, and in many cases I have used the WP to compile info for homework assignments. I am sure that more Windows OS products will begin to incorporate many of the same features, but if you can tolerate some of the limitations of software availability for the Linux platform overall, this would be a great choice. There is also a fringe benefit in the consideration of the Zaurus as being the only Linux based product so far (at least to my knowledge). For some reason it has caused the purchase price of the product due to demand to drop substantially in contrast to what the product is capable of and in comparison to similar MS based products. Some retailers are starting to sell them for 335.00 new.