[lug] my little Zaurus

[Brad Grissom]

I have heard of people buying low profile headphones that fit into the small amount of space that is left over.  The Linksys CF wireless card still even takes up some of the stylus space.  A friend of mine actually took a file to the Linksys card and shaved off space to slide the stylus into place.

Also watch out for that little dellicate stylus.  I simply dropped mine on a tile floor and it broke.  The little plastic pieces are very fragile.  Overall I'm very happy that the Zaurus is being sold at Best Buy.  It is good to see a Linux-Based product being sold at one of the nations largest electronic stores.  The Zaurus is great because it can do just about everything and is compatible with most everything.  I think that it still has a while to go before even being considered competition for the mainstream PDA's.  I also hope it does well for the selfish reason of having a wide selection of accessories to furnish the Zaurus.

~~Brad Grissom
Colorado School of Mines

On 20 May 2002, Jonathan Briggs wrote:

> I've had mine for three weeks now and I love it too.  However, I've
> already determined that there's a lot of work to do on the applications
> for it :-)
>
> It needs a decent image viewer.  The included one uses too much memory
> and can't display a 1920 x 1240 950 KB JPEG properly.  Since this is the
> image that my digital camera produces and I thought it would be cool to
> use the Zaurus as an image viewer, I was disappointed.  The Amiga used
> to be able to display and scale JPEG images that big using less than 16
> MB of memory.
>
> It needs a decent email application.  The included one can't handle my
> IMAP folders.  It seems to choke while handling a mere 200 messages.  My
> archive folders with 7,000 messages don't stand a chance.  It tries to
> download all the headers and email for local viewing.  That might be
> nice, but the user should get to select what mail, and if the headers
> take too much space, it shouldn't download them.  I wouldn't mind
> viewing the mail 100 messages at a time.
>
> I'm planning to try writing an AD&D 3rd edition character sheet database
> for it this week.  It should be just perfect for that.  It could even
> roll dice for me.
>
> Like you, I also got the D-Link card because Best Buy had it right there
> next to the Zaurus.  I've decided that I really like having wireless
> connectivity.  The only problem is the D-Link.  It is too large and
> blocks the headphone jack and the stylus.  It also uses 3 times as much
> power as the Symbol (I think) cards, from what I've read online.
> Battery life while using wireless is about 1.5 hours.
>
> As a music player, the Zaurus isn't bad either, if you pop in a memory
> card.  I can fit a couple CDs on a 96 MB compact flash.  Which is all
> you need because the battery will run down before you can finish playing
> all the songs.  But the sound quality is great.
>
> I think the Zaurus needs a belt or backpack power pack.  Does anyone
> make something like that?  Do you think a belt made of linked LiIon
> battery cells would be a fire hazard?
>
> :-)
>
> Actually just using the Zaurus as a PDA, just keeping contacts, shedules
> and notes, the battery life seems fine.  It's just when you're
> continuously using the screen light, playing music or using the wireless
> network that it lacks power.
>
> Looks like you got me on a roll there.  I think I nearly wrote a full
> review!
>
> On Mon, 2002-05-20 at 14:14, Brad Grissom wrote:
> > There hasn't been much talk of the Sharp Zaurus SL-5500 on the list lately.  Is there much excitement from listers about this product?
> >
> > I bought mine about a week ago from Best Buy, and I love it.  I recently got a D-Link CF wireless network card for it.  I had some trouble getting it working, but it was only my wireless network settings that held me back.  With the CF Linksys card, you have to update the ROM to get it to work.
> >
> > Its a great little device and I still have a lot of playing to do.
> >
> > ~~Brad Grissom
> > Colorado School of Mines
> >
> >
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> --
> Jonathan Briggs
> jbriggs at esoft.com
>