Zaurus SL-6000 Review 230
Bill Kendrick writes "BargainPDA has done a full review of Sharp's Zaurus SL-6000L Linux-based PDA, which was recently released to consumers in the US. There are six pages of review, lots of pretty photos, and comparisons with previous Zaurus models."
Could someone review the review (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Could someone review the review (Score:5, Funny)
The screen! (Score:5, Interesting)
That is ALL that I needed to see. This is finally a PDA I want!
Re:The screen! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'd run this damned thing with Lindows^H^H^H^Hspire!!!
Re:The screen! (Score:4, Funny)
Modern operating systems such as Microsoft Windows XP Professional Edition are not affected by this flaw.
Re:The screen! (Score:4, Funny)
Re:The screen! (Score:5, Informative)
Some systems would let you intentionally insert backspace characters into your posts. At 300bps you would actually see the word Lindows, then the cursor would move back four spaces in it would recomplete the word as Linspire.
Re:The screen! (Score:2, Insightful)
I remember it was my first exposure to QBASIC. I'd written a lot of Applesoft programs on the Apple IIe at school, so I thought I wouldn't have any problem. I vividly remember my first program:
10 FOR A = 1 TO 3
20 PRINT "hi"
30 NEXT A
RUN
RUN
RUN
RUN
-
Finally, I figured out how to run it. And it ran
Re:The screen! (Score:3, Informative)
Re:The screen! (Score:2)
Re:The screen! (Score:2)
Re:The screen! (Score:2)
I read somewhere that someone put a VNC server on Zaurus a
Re:The screen! (Score:2)
Re:The screen! (Score:2)
Old school fool [win2000mag.com]
Hmmm... (Score:2)
Another Site Bites the Dust (Score:2, Funny)
Only two posts and it's already slashdotted.
Re:Another Site Bites the Dust (Score:3, Funny)
There are six pages of review, lots of pretty photos
yep, lots of pretty photos for better slashdotting.
"Bargain"PDA (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:3, Interesting)
Dont you know that to status seekers, ultra-consumerists, whatever you want to call them, more expensive = higher quality = you are a better person for owning it.
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:4, Insightful)
This guy [flashenabled.com] is a perfect example of that. Ofcourse, he does it because he's a geek and because he has the means. But more than that, its a status symbol for such folks to be carrying the latest coolest gadget around.
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:2)
If you are a person that wants a PDA and for whom 650 bucks doesnt mean anything, please send me $1300 and I'll test a PDA for you, and keep an, um, backup handy for when yours is down we could have a replacement ready.
Just send me the money and see what I could do for you.
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:5, Insightful)
With the Zaurus, I can easily carry it in my pocket, use the campus' WiFi, and take notes in class (granted, a full keyboard would be optimal, but I can easily sketch notes on this thing). With a laptop you have to lug around a big bag that screams "steal me." Laptops also do not fit on univerity "desks." The battery life of a laptop would not last me through a day of class without recharging. I can go on, but I think my point is clear: laptops are bulky, especially if you are always on the move.
Not to mention that I can easily pull it out of my pocket and play a few minutes of Final Fantasy III on the bus ride back to my apartment.
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:2)
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:2)
color me cheap (Score:2)
go-peach.com/mak02/keihin/m/DSC04271.JPG
it provides a very stable recording media for written data, never crashes and you never have to worry about running out of power!
it's also within a price range that anyone can afford.
Re:color me cheap (Score:2)
Re:color me cheap (Score:2)
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:5, Interesting)
I'll answer that myself: you'll spend that money if it increases your productivity enough to justify the investment.
The same goes for an expensive PDA like that. For some, they really make use of it, and they really will/do get $650-700 of value out of it.
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:2)
Sure, the $600 PDA may increase my productivity $600+, but there may be a $200 PDA that could do the same thing.
This is one reason people are afraid to buy a lot of electronics. They could buy one, then in a couple days the company will do a price drop or an upgrade.
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, they are worth every penny.
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:2, Informative)
just having the internal wi-fi, mic and speaker were enough for me to upgrade
also now that the cf slot is free you can insert a sprint connection card which is supported with an ipk dialer
if anyone wants my old sl-5500, software and accessories: i am selling it on ebay
sl-5500 @ ebay [ebay.com]
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:2, Informative)
Re:"Bargain"PDA (Score:3, Informative)
Sure I could have bought a cheap laptop for the same money with all these features and a better screen and keyboard, but I wanted a good PDA, not a bad laptop. I also have a laptop for other tasks.
You cannot really write code on a PDA, but you can carry it with you everywhere and use wireless and ssh to do an urgent bug fix. I only take my laptop some
My favorite thing about my Zaurus... (Score:5, Insightful)
I love being able to know that many of the advances people make for the new SL-6000 will be equally applicable to my SL-5500, because the source is open!
In contrast, my roommate's older WinCE PDA, even though it has some nice hardware, is stuck with old software. There will never be anything new that he can do with it, because there is no upgrade path.
I do not agree. (Score:2, Interesting)
It is next to useless because no one supports it.
Re:I do not agree. (Score:5, Interesting)
Agenda, IIRC, was released in 2001, and the company making it soon after went out of business. The fact is, if it weren't for open-source, there wouldn't be anything new you'd be doing with your PDA. The fact that you can still find software for it after 4 years says something.
Re:I do not agree. (Score:3, Informative)
Hardware wise, it was between the palms and the CE devices, and was priced at $250 with a 66MHz MIPS processor when the lowest prices on CE devices was around $400. Not to mention, the battery life kicked ass. A week (honestly) on 2 AA batteries, and it
Re:My favorite thing about my Zaurus... (Score:2)
If his WinCE rig can run wifi and termserver client, there is still plenty of life left in it.
Re:My favorite thing about my Zaurus... (Score:2, Informative)
Sharp has been pretty crappy about their Zaurus support. THe 6000 is out here stateside, but you have to get the cool wide-aspect units from overseas. And those are expensive. my 5500 was dirt cheap, but the thing wo
Re:My favorite thing about my Zaurus... (Score:2)
what really matters (Score:4, Insightful)
Google Cache (Score:5, Informative)
$699 and NO GAMES ?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:$699 and NO GAMES ?! (Score:2)
That's not true. (Score:2)
Re:$699 and NO GAMES ?! (Score:2)
Re:$699 and NO GAMES ?! (Score:3, Informative)
Your best source of info is the forums on Zaurus User Group. [zaurususergroup.com]
Free Zaurus (Score:5, Interesting)
I hope that OpenZaurus [openzaurus.org]/OpenEmbedded [openembedded.org] get their act together soon and release a new version that supports the SL-5600/SL-6000. The current version of OpenZaurus is unstable on my SL-5600 and the Sharp ROM is crap. I am thinking about trying Gentoo for Zaurus [opensistemas.com].
Are there any other free Zaurus distros out there?
Re:Free Zaurus (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. the Debian Zaurus Project [debian.org] is headed by Debian Developer Matt Zimmerman. From what I know, he pretty much just had to make a custom kernel and build a ROM image, as Debian officially supports the ARM architecture. No massive recompiling necessary. Just hijack someone's WiFi connection and apt-get whatever you want ;D
Re:Free Zaurus (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Free Zaurus (Score:3, Informative)
it ain't no pda (Score:5, Interesting)
the transflective screen alone makes it useful in many situations where my laptop will fail: outdoors in different lighting; the ruggedness (survives much droppage) is another reason i can take it outdoors
just local.google.com makes it worthwhile at my new home at carnegie mellon, where there is wifi everywhere and i can find all essential services on a map quite easily
$699? (Score:4, Funny)
Cool! (Score:2, Funny)
Lack of decent up to date software. (Score:5, Interesting)
I own both a Palm PDA and a Zaurus (Treo 90 and SL-5000), the former is a perfect organiser whereas I hardly consider the latter to be. My Zaurus is let down by many things, firstly the fact that there exists relatively little up to date organiser software for it that even comes anything close to many of the free Palm apps out there.
Secondly, installing some of the more interesting applications on the Zaurus requires you to jump through herculian hoops to get things working.
Lastly, people'll probably point to webpages chocked full of Zaurus applications (http://www.killefiz.de/zaurus/ being one) but one closer inspection you'll find that many of the more useful applications are either in a half finished state or haven't been maintained in several years and lack features needed to work with newer desktop versions.
Don't get me wrong, I love my Zaurus. There's nothing like pulling it out of your pocket, firing up the WiFi, ssh'ing into your box and synching your local MySQL server. Just don't buy it if you're looking for an organiser, you'll be bitterly disappointed.
- Sadiq
Re:Lack of decent up to date software. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Lack of decent up to date software. (Score:2)
Re:Lack of decent up to date software. (Score:5, Informative)
As the proud owner of a now obsolete Handspring Visor and having just purchased a "new" Zaurus 5500 on Ebay, I basically agree.
Everything on a Palm is instant. It may not have every feature you want, and until recently, the screens had pretty poor resolution (Sony is the exception). However, the applications worked well, and had reasonable interfaces so they could be used quickly.
I quickly abandoned the Sharp ROM for the Zaurus in favor of OpenZaurus [openzaurus.org], but I've certainly had my frustrations with bugs and missing features. Some small things, like the ability for the application buttons to turn on the device (like a Palm), and some larger things, like having it not reboot properly the second time if you haven't suspended in between (though there is an unofficial fix).
Why am I rebooting in the first place? Because of the Zaurus' greatest aspect - it's basically a fully-functional Linux system. As such, one can tweak, test, and otherwise poke around (sometimes needing a reboot if something got messed up or you're testing something). Some Zaurus applications I've found I've had no good free Palm equivalent. Zee Cookbook is a great, if somewhat slow (when editing), way to keep a database of recipes on hand. QTJournal is a great way to take notes that are categorized by date and subject. The ability to run just about any console-based Linux software (even the statistical software R [r-project.org]) makes it very useful as a sysadmin tool. With a small, cheap wireless card from Ebay, it is often more convenient than lugging around a laptop.
Some of the things I've wanted to use my Zaurus for before I bought it work, and some don't (yet). I got xmms running and it plays OGG files well (but the included mediaplayer with openzaurus doesn't, and the Sharp ROM's media player has a horrendous interface). I can control the Zaurus remotely via ssh (VERY handy for exploring with a real keyboard) and VNC (with the framebuffer vnc package). However, the latter doesn't offer even basic security (and I haven't gotten iptables to work), so I'm reluctant to use it often, mostly out of principle.
I got the xvnc server running, but the vncviewer client to view it simply will not connect to it, or any other vnc server. I've seen a few other reports of this behavior but no fix, and most people seem to have no problem. This combo is supposed to allow the use of any X11 application on the Zaurus itself, and more importantly for me, remote X applications (so I can control xmms on my music server with a wireless connection - the ultimate remote). If anyone has a suggestion about this, I'd be happy to hear it.
My other problem is mail - mailit (included with OpenZaurus) is simplistic, but more importantly doesn't work for one of my domains (not sure why this is). I can telnet manually to port 110 and execute pop commands fine, but this mail client barks about an unknown response from the server. QTmail doesn't work either - it gives host not found or something like that.
For the price I paid, I get far more functionality than I ever did from a Visor, but the Zaurus definitely has its frustrations. The PIM apps are nothing much to speak of, they function, but are slower than their Palm equivalents (this, again is on OpenZaurus). My greatest desire - the ability to have tree-view tasks, is not implemented on either my Handspring or any version of "todo" on the Zaurus that I've used.
So it's not perfect, but you can still pry it from my cold, dead hands.
tree-view to-do software (Score:3, Informative)
Why is it.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Does that state something of our mentality (ooooh, prettty!!!) or do we just not RTFA..
Inquiring minds want to know..
(and dammit, I wanted to see the pictures, too!)
I'm insulted! (Score:2, Funny)
Pretty big review - heres the text of pages 1-4 (Score:5, Informative)
Reviewed for bargainPDA by Ian Giblin.
Thanks to offroadgeek from The Zaurus User Group for input and discussion.
Overview and Introduction
The new Zaurus SL-6000 from Sharp is a versatile, linux-based PDA incorporating an Intel XScale (PXA255) CPU at 400 MHz. In some respects it is a hybrid of the Zaurus SL-5600, which became available in the U.S. in April of 2003, and the SL-C750/760/860 which is only available as a special import and was reviewed here in September of 2003. The main enhancements to the SL-6000 are a better screen, some ruggedisation, built-in Wi-Fi and/or bluetooth, and a degree of expandability. There's also a USB host built into it using a Mini A connector on the bottom of the device. Oh, and a longer stylus.
The device I'm reviewing here is the SL-6000L, which has only Wi-Fi. We spoke to Sharp's representative about the other models - specifically the SL-6000N (Bluetooth only) and the SL-6000W, which was billed as the combo product with both 802.11b Wireless and Bluetooth. The representative told us that the only version which will be made available to the general consumer is the 6000L Wi-Fi variant.
If you put it into Google you can find the SL-6000W but you can't actually buy one yet (May 2004).
The Sharp Zaurus SL-6000 and You
You might wonder - what's the target market for this device? It is large, expensive and ruggedised. If you haven't already guessed, the answer is "Enterprise". Sharp collaborated with IBM on this project, but the only evidence on the consumer device is the link to IBM's page when you open the Opera web browser. A little nosing about on IBM's site yields some other interesting pages like this one on cross-developement. But I digress...
An ongoing aspect of the Enterprise factor is RailDocs, a system "designed to enable users to efficiently design, build, and maintain the fixed transportation infrastructure of a railroad". Not for the average user, obviously, but it speaks volumes for the stability and versatility of the Zaurus product.
It is something of a surprise that Sharp have made the SL-6000 available to the consumer market, particularly after a Sharp marketing representative originally told bargainPDA "Please keep in mind that this product is designed exclusively for the corporate market and will not be sold through the direct to consumer channel. It will be used by businesses for business applications.".
Whether the Sharp Zaurus is right for you depends upon the type of role you see for it. The Zaurus is probably the best linux-based handheld computer available, and the software is almost the same across models. It may not be the best PDA, in fact most Zaurus users wouldn't even call it a PDA. Sharp themselves call the Zaurus a Personal Mobile Tool. If you decide to buy a Zaurus you can find one to fit your budget. The table below summarises the features of key members of the Sharp Zaurus range, plus a very rough indication of their current prices. Links will open the bargainPDA reviews where available.
The C760 and C860 differ only in that the 860 has a Japanese/English dictionary on it, and it has a silver case rather than the white one on the 760. The C750 is like the C760, but has a smaller battery and less memory; reading the SL-C750 review will give you a very good idea of those three Zaurus "clamshell" devices. Some of the software section of this review is just an updated and edited version of the C750 software review.
Anyone looking at the SL-6000 should consider the alternative of buying an imported SL-C860 or C760 plus an 802.11b wireless card. This would give you the same functionality as the SL-6000L model reviewed here (plus an extra 64MB of internal flash memory), but you may have to risk some major inconvenience if the C model Zaurus breaks down - even when you buy through high-end channels such as Dynamism where the C860 costs $849, or ShirtPocket where it is 565. As well as the currency conversion you're doing in your hea
I'll buy one (Score:4, Insightful)
The Linux based one was a solid machine PLUS it had the ability to satisfy my compulsive need to change things all the time. I also liked the fact that I could use it to SSH into my web server to make changes. Very cool in my opinion.
The rest - parts 5 and 6 text (Score:5, Informative)
At the top level, this looks like any PDA OS. The underlying Operating System is OpenPDA from Metrowerks (a company owned by Motorola). The GUI is Qtopia from Trolltech. This is a very well established system and has a good user and developer base. It also benefits from a certain amount of cross-platform portability, meaning that software can easily be translated from other systems to this one.
The main functionality is organised into four Home Pages or "Tabs": Applications, Java, Settings and Files. The Java Tab seems completely pointless, and I was glad to find that it disappears if you reset the flash memory as I have done several times while testing the device (if you want it back, you can reinstall from a package on the CD). I won't bore you with describing the three Java "applications " on the SL-6000. Their only worthy feature is that Java apps run in resizable and movable windows, which is a big deal when you have this much screen real estate. One day all windows will be movable and resizable (imagine that!).
You can add your own Home tabs, including a custom icon from a choice of what looks like hundreds. You cannot edit the system tabs. The pictures below show the four default Home Tabs; clicking on each one will open a new window in your browser showing the actual screenshot. All these screen shots are in portrait mode, but I only did this so they'd fit the review page better. They work just as well with the screen rotated 90 degrees.
You can change the theme of the interface easily using the Appearance tool in the Settings Home Page; the differences are significant but not Earth-shattering. You can also set a graphical backdrop to the Home Tabs (other than the File Manager). This doesn't seem to slow the interface down, and it has the potential to look great on this display.
Zoom Zoom
One feature of the SL-6000 which affects many applications is the "zoom" capability. Using the Qtopia menu items (ZoomIn and ZoomOut you can zoom in and out in most application displays. What this really means is scaling the font and usually some other window furniture (e.g. column markers in a spreadsheet). It is very effective, and only limited by the font you are using. I made an animation of this when I reviewed the C750 last year - click here to see it.
Help System
The Qtopia GUI includes a customised help system which offers help on just about anything with an icon. It looks like a basic web browser and would be very useful to someone just starting out with the PDA. Once you've skimmed the manual I doubt it would be much help, but it does provide a good introduction.
(back to contents)
Personal Information Management (PIM) Tools
PIM Applications: Address Book, Calendar, ToDo List.
The Address book is pretty standard - adding, deleting and editing entries is easy. You can choose which fields appear on the list and their order, as well as the overall sort order. The display uses colour very well.
Contacts can be beamed back and forth between the Zaurus and any other IR-capable PDA easily, although only one at a time from what I could tell, using
The Calendar allows a day, week, month and year view and you can set up reminders, repeating events, and so on. In the month view you can have a text format (which soon gets crowded) or graphical, which uses colour coded stripes to show events. This works well. Having used the application for some time on my 5600, I have found a few things which are annoying. For example, setting an appointment to repeat daily results in an entry in the calendar for every day forever. It would be so much nicer if it just updated each day to indicate the next scheduled event.
The ToDo list, like the Calendar and Adress book, is adequate. It syncs with Outlook or Qtopia Desktop and is fairly useful f
If you have a mac... (Score:5, Interesting)
UK? (Score:2)
I've been looking forward to getting this new one ever since I read the review of the beta model! 640x480 on a PDA? Nice!
Apparently BargainPDA uses bargain web serving (Score:2, Redundant)
VGA: good or bad? (Score:2)
Let's not all go blind ogling, shall we?
USB host mode - Add hard drives, other USB devices (Score:5, Informative)
The SL-600 changes that. In theory, you should now be able to connect any USB device that Linux supports to the SL-6000 and use it. So far, unfortunately, I've heard no sucess doing this yet...though the hardware is there.
Anyone have sucess using random devices with the Zaurus?
I'd expect that the following should work without much trouble;
USB splitter
Keyboard
disk drives (including flash)
Some may require software tweaks or added support as the Zaurus is intentionally a minimalist device.
Re:USB host mode - Add hard drives, other USB devi (Score:4, Interesting)
What is the codename of the SL-6000? (Score:3)
Re:What is the codename of the SL-6000? (Score:3, Informative)
Processor : Intel XScale-PXA255 rev 6 (v5l)
BogoMIPS : 397.31
Features : swp half thumb fastmult edsp
CPU implementor : 0x69
CPU architecture: 5TE
CPU variant : 0x0
CPU part : 0x2d0
CPU revision : 6
Cache type : undefined 5
Cache clean : undefined 5
Cache lockdown : undefined 5
Cache unified : harvard
I size : 16384
I assoc : 16
I line length : 32
I sets : 32
D size : 16384
D assoc : 16
D line length : 32
D sets : 32
Hardware : SHARP Tosa
Revision : 0000
Serial :
Where to buy Linux PDAs? (Score:4, Informative)
Form Factor (Score:2, Insightful)
While I find the capabilities of this "linux-based PDA incorporating an Intel XScale (PXA255) CPU at 400 MHz" to be outstanding, my question has to do with a topic not mentioned in the article.
I genuinely believe that more can and should be done with both currently in development and especially in future PDAs with a different form factor, perhaps the "old" PSION style horizontal-type design? The keyboard layout alone was worth it IMHO but also it seems that the screen potentials as to sizes and resolut
Re:Form Factor (Score:2)
Hell yes! If my old psion series V hadnt died (changed the batteries 3 years ago and it refused to function ever again - locked up solid on startup. Even doing a "
Shouldn't this have been reviewed by... (Score:3, Funny)
The Chart is a little misleading. (Score:2)
Re:The Chart is a little misleading. (Score:3, Informative)
Beware of Pizza Interference (Score:2)
A standard pizza operates at 2.4 GHz
I remember in college a few guys had "special" pizza, but I don't think it had anything to do with radio frequencies.
That has to be one of the funniest typos I have seen in a while.
Re:Beware of Pizza Interference (Score:2)
MobileTechNews lives (Score:3, Informative)
There's a living review at Mobile Tech News [mobiletechnews.com].
And don't forget Sharp's [sharpusa.com] site.
What version of Java does it run? (Score:3, Insightful)
Desktop vs. laptop vs. Zaurus vs. PDA... (Score:3, Interesting)
1) Can't really develop on a PDA. Got *full* compilers for Java, C++, C#, etc.? Nope. [1]
2) Keyboard. Do I really want to write code on the Zaurus' small keyboard - or worse, via handwriting recognition or the on-screen software keyboard? No way. Emails, short (less than 1000 words) messages, sure, but code? No. That said, the Zaurus 6000's USB host capability means I could plug in a USB keyboard and use that instead. That would help alleviate the problem quite a bit IMO.
The above ignores the problem of PDAs having a necessarily-small screen size. My Visor can only display about 10 lines of text at a time, though maybe the Zaurus is better here... But my laptop, at 1024x768 res. can display about 35 lines (the more code on screen without needing to squint, the better of course).
PDAs are great for what they're designed for - storing and displaying contact info, notes, books, etc., but for serious computing (i.e. that which requires lots of user input, CPU-usage, storage space, etc.), unfortunately we're not quite up to laptop levels yet, even if something like the Zaurus' USB host feature allows connecting to external HDDs...
I have to admit though, the USB host capability theoretically offers a *lot* of potential for expansion, and I think that's probably a slightly-underplayed advantage of the Zaurus 6000...
[1] I know GCC has been ported to the Zaurus, and if you have a CF or SD card to run it off of, you can actually do your compiles on the Zaurus. Admittedly, that's pretty close to what I'd like to do. And Perl is available for the Zaurus too, albeit, at a hefty 34MB [killefiz.de] (again, need a CF or SD card). But again, what about Java? I think the best one could do is to use gcj, which AFAIK is not really a serious alternative to the Sun or Blackdown javac's...
And then there's the mere 400MHz CPU speed vs. my laptop's 2.4GHz, although, running distcc (if you have network access to distcc-running systems) would help immensely...
My $0.02.
Drops Insignia Jeode Java VM in favor of IBM J9 VM (Score:4, Informative)
Unfortunately, both are J2ME [sun.com] Personal Profile [sun.com] VM's, so most java programs have to be ported to work on them. It's too bad that SUN laid down the law and told SavaJe [savaje.com] and others that handheld devices are only allowed to run J2ME and not J2SE [sun.com], even if SavaJe did manage to port it and make it work. So, no applets in your web browser
Another Java issue is that you can't simply tap on a jar file and expect it to run. Instead, you have to jump through all sorts of hoops to create a special installation package just for the Zaurus. This makes it difficult to use PersonalJava applications that were designed to work on any platform without doing some re-packaging. Although I understand the impetus to use the linux-ish packaging system they use for linux based applictions, it's disappointing that they didn't use something like JNLP [sun.com] for PersonalJava applications.
Re:First postings.... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:First postings.... (Score:2)
Re:First postings.... (Score:2)
Re:Did the full review include... (Score:2)
The only response [cougaar.org] was a mention of Cougaar Micro Edition [cougaar.org]... not sure where it will go from there. Depends on how much horsepower the Zaurus has...
Re:Did the full review include... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Did the full review include... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Did the full review include... (Score:2)
MOD PARENT UP!!!
*ducks*
Re:Did the full review include... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Did the full review include... (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Enough with the SCO jokes (Score:2)
Re:don't buy a pda (Score:4, Interesting)
Note: I have owned a Zaurus 5500 since 2002 and paid $400 for it new.
1) - Are you like a lead hand when pressing on touch screens? You must be, because I've never had a problem with my screen breaking. But i've also never broken my laptop screen either.
2) - I've never owned a Palm but my friend has one and he's a pretty big guy, and has never broken his screen.
PDA's = PDA's...um yeah Personal Data Assistant, sounds right to me.
As far as it getting pocketed in
Dropping it would definately break it I agree...but so would your laptop unless you got some extra "ruggid" type. As for an mp3 player - uh yeah most of them if you drop them they will break, and if you bust the LCD on an iPod your kinda screwed. Also if you reak it, why replace it? These types of items are NOT meant to be repaired like that, it's usually cheeper and more efficient to just replace the item.
I have a feeling you must be really clumsy and break a LOT of items. No one I know that has owned a PDA has broken anything on it...but we also have never dropped them, never left them on a park bench, and never flushed them down the toilet...apparently some people do it looks like....
Re:What I would like in a PDA . . . (Score:2)
Of course you have to live with the downsides of the PPC platform (not amazingly reliable, bad battery life compared to Palm) but it's always a tradeoff. I have a iPaq with built in wifi and b
Re:What I would like in a PDA . . . (Score:2)