Heh.. SL-5500 mini-review

Post #36,397 by Ashton 4/24/02 2:54:00 PM Reply	Heh.. SL-5500 mini-review Thanks, Doug. I note that eBay has its share of the reading-afflicted: One 5500 is clearly listed as NON-OP and the bid is up to $200+. No mention of warranty (if any) remaining = surely owner would have fixed it first, if s/he could! Having played with only a couple of these tiny thingies before, I'm in no position to compare the 5500 to others. In tech terms, it's cute as a bugs ear (that'd be Walter Brennan's review). Simply an amazing collection of features - in a box the size of a Tarot deck: Handwriting recog, slide-down teeny full-ascii kb!, pickboard or unicode - for entry. Stylus, finger, joystick or - a few well-chosen pushbuttons for surfing around the usual addr. books, ToDo lists (Gawd.. to Have to look at ToDo lists 24/7 -- what a Fate!) Games, a neat world map with Time in Vladivostok or Anchorage or... Hong Kong! Opera browser (!) Media player -- it's an MP-3 player on steroids. Will record your utterances, too. Flip-top screen protector is easily removeable. Sharp has many yrs. experience in cramming stuff into tiny Al cases (Titanium would be a nice yuppie Up-Scale {ugh} next step for the perpetually Needing-More). A demo sample of (what used to be called c.e.g. = continuous edge graphics - smoothing) with some blue spheres: indicates more than adequate pic resolution. SD and Compact Flash accommodated: gather there's a teeny modem in a CF package available - dunno but assume that could be wireless - so ya can send [cackles] to zIWE while sipping a glass of Schrammsburg and mastering mini-Opera interface (not to mention all those E-mails...) Wireless LAN is an icon, as is backup and lots more. Didn't install the s/w and try the caddy (USB connection), but have to asume that it does it all.. also has IR tiny sensor (!!!) I mean... WTF else could they have tossed in? In brief: just as soon as it talks to me (and listens with comprehension) - guess I'll 'Need' one ;-) {sigh} Were I sufficiently organized already - it could contain legions. Alas.. no plans in that direction. My Hell would be: that I would NEED to have my agenda planned.. 6 mos ahead 24/7. (And NEED to 'interface' with humor-impaired National Guard droids making sure that my Zaurus wasn't full of Semtex, my Medal of Honor Not a terrorist weapon and my shoes Not full of Zyklon-B) Can the day of NEEDing a Zaurus along to prove yer not a Commie, in any Govt building.. be far behind? Anyway.. it's bloody cute! but ominous... Ashton who tends to look for 'what the Authoritarians' plan for such techno -?- for our security and uniformity, natch. Thanks, Doug for the chance to audition it. If only it had an adaptor to talk to the Acura engine computer - I'd HAVE to get one NOW!
Post #36,751 by dmarker2 4/29/02 7:20:41 AM Reply	Re: Heh.. SL-5500 mini-review - Thanks, lookin fwd to it Have decided that Win2002 MSIE is pure sh** - Just hope am not expecting too much from Oprea on the Zaurus but every review of it is a rave. Have been very tolerant of MSIE in win2002 but find it bloody hard to navigate with & it seems to behave very erratically (or am missing something). The images don't always get downloaded - even my mickey mouse PALM powered Handspring Visor displays the graphics consistently & acceptably allowing for its res compared to the iPAQ 3870. The YOPY is nothing short of a big dissapointment - the support is next to non-existant & although have access to their developer site & have done a couple of upgrades to Linux & the filesys - am finding the device to be next to useless. The SONY PEG-NR70 is a delight but am hampered as to exploring all its extra features due to limited ability to read Japanese characters (can manage the Katakana but the Kanji beats me). One device that looks very attractive (almost won over the choice to buy the iPAQ) is the new NEC device. It appears to have the ability for direct connection of USB devices but (has a mini-USB port on the side in addition to the USB cradle connection). But, the NEC only had 32MB RAM, no bluetooth (as the iPAQ3870 has) & thus was too expensive for what ya got. It is far nicer looking than the iPAQ 3870 & has 2 expansion slots inaddition to the USB ability. (actually I see it is priced at $599 in US (see prices link below) - bloody ridiculous - maybe they have come down a bit). [link\|http://popularmechanics.com/technology/computers/2001/11/nec_pda_mobilepro_p300/\|NEC's attractive PDA] [link\|http://www.nextag.com/NEC_Mobilepro_P300_H~3626197z3znz300314zz1z300314zzmainz2-htm\|US Price comparisons] Cheers Doug M
Post #37,468 by dmarker2 5/4/02 7:22:03 AM Reply	Re: It arrived today This is one nice little unit. Has every thing a PDA user wants but the hand writing reco software could be improved (on iPAQ there are multiple options (as on the YOPY)) that allow you to choose your fav way of entry (PALM style, Conventional chars, mini keyboard, (on iPAQ also free scrip)t, etc). The keyboard is probably the best of them all (iPAQ has to use a clumsy addon). Zaurus, failed to reco the two SD cards that work in my iPAQ, but did reco the CF card (256MB). Zaurus PC software doesn't seem to have the power of all the others in allowing you to browse the PDA directly from the PC (even YOPY supports this in a limited fashion). Zaurus has no mic or speaker, no big deal but all the others do have & it is useful. Like Ashton mentioned, I too fumbled around trying to power it on until it twigged that the battery is not in until you install it. I will do a more detailed comparison report on it cpmpared to the others. Already I can see it has some goods & bads but at last I feel that there is a serious Linux PDA that has the capability to take on Win2002 & achieve an impact (YOPY wasn't likely to do so). I want to try the Opera browser tonight as that is the weakest item on all other forms of PDA - MSIE on Win2002 is the pits. Browsing is my most important requirement. But if Opera is no better I will have no hesitation in saying so. Thus far, the iPAQ 3780 has an all round edge because of the wealth of well established extras & add-ons. If Sharp can build on their initial success they might catch Compaq up. The Zaurus is same size as iPAQ3780 & Sony PEG-NR70. YOPY is the tiniest & would have been a winner if they hadn't stuffed up the screen back-light issue. Cheers Doug Marker (PS thanks for handling this for me Ash)

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