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)