First review of SL-5600 (Was: Re: Zaurus distro and software?)

[Alan Dayley]

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Craig White wrote:
> can't help - not even a little bit but would appreciate your keeping us
> informed of your progress on the Sharp.

As requested, this is my first description of the Sharp Zaurus SL-5600
that I bought on eBay and received last Tuesday.  I actually have been
writing it at stolen moments over the days since then.  So far, it is
fun but I have not put it to full use.  But, I am getting into the review.

I'll put this one the web somewhere at some point but for now, it is a
longish email.

All comments and pointers welcome.

Alan
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I promised that I would document my adventures with the Zaurus SL-5600.
 After my second day with it is now nearly over, I figure I better get
started.

First off, I am writing this document, for now, on the unit using the
built in keyboard.  It is easier to use than I thought it would be but
more on that later.

Before purchase about a week ago (today is 1 Sep 2005), I checked going
prices around the web.  eBay prices were the lowest (Surprise.) with an
average of about $170.  More than half of the auctions were from the
same seller (Global Phoenix Computer Technologies Solutions, Inc.,
http://globalpct.com).  I bid on one from Global PCT, ending on the
weekend, which helps sometimes to get a lower price.  I closed the
auction at $141.49, a pretty good deal.

I should have sprung for faster shipping since it took 6 days via UPS
ground from Ithica NY.  My wife got tired of my daily tracking reports.,

The unit arrived in a plain box that held a plain white heavy cardboard
box with sparse red printing with the Sharp logo and Refurbished on the
side.

Inside the box everything was nicely packaged as if for retail.  It had
a quick start book @@@ pages long.  There was no CD, only a note to go
to www.myzaurus.com to download software.

The battery was packaged separately from the unit.  Instructions
required that it be fully charged before use.  The power adapter plugs
directly into the bottom of the unit so I quickly installed the battery
and plugged it in.  While charging I inspected the Zaurus.

The case was very clean.  Only after looking hard did I find two small
scratches on the back.  It looked and felt new.  The main buttons slid
down cleanly to expose the little keyboard.  It did not feel loose or
worn at all.  A sticker on the back proclaims that the unit has been
refurbished by Sharp.  Looks like they did a good job.

Once charged after about 3 hours, I turned it on.  A nice logo displayed
with a message to wait 2 minutes to startup.  What is happening here is
the kernel is booting but this only happens after power loss or a hard
reset.  In normal use, when the unit is off it is really suspended so
this long boot time does not happen in normal use.

I played with the the software for a while and was at least not
repulsed.  I set that aside for now.

Some research showed some half dozen or so distros for the Zaurus.  Some
were offered as ROMs or full images of software but did not appear to
offer further updates.  Open Zaurus is still very active and offered a
couple of desktops to choose from.  I decided to stay with the original
software for now but will probably go with Open Zaurus if I choose to
change.  http://openzaurus.org

A good place to get info and links to further resources is the active
Zaurus User Group.  They have forums and links to other resources.
http://zaurususergroup.org

Moving along after deciding to stick with the built-in software, my
first task was to move my data from my Palm OS based PDA to this.  The
only way to do this cleanly, at least using the tools from Sharp, is to
sychronize your old unit to Outlook (Yes, that Out look.) and then sync
Outlook to the Zaurus.  A bit hard to do on a standard Linux desktop.
All other user data transfer methods appear to involve user created
scripts and programs, all of which had provisos about "loosing
categories" or other such half solutions.

I imagine the above issue resulted in many returned units when users
didn't have an easy way to migrate their data and went back to the store
for an upgraded Palm device instead.

After playing some games with scripts and manual adjustments, most of my
contacts are now in the Zaurus.  I still have to migrate my calendar
entries but there is supposed to be a script for that.  Memos are
another matter.  In the Zaurus, memos are just text files as on any
computer.  I use jpilot as my desktop application for my Palm PDA and it
only exports multiple memos to one big file.  I'll have to find an Palm
app that I can export multiple memos as files or invent a script to
split out the big file.  BTW, once the files are created, they just have
to be copied to /home/zaurus/Documents/Text_Files to use them.  BTW
again, I pasted that path into this document by highlighting it in the
bash shell and pasting it here.  It's cool to do such a Linux-y
operation right here in my hand.  (I'm such a geek.)

I cannot yet try out networking operations like email, web browsing or
remote access.  I don't have a CF networking card nor have I configured
networking through the USB connection yet.  I am anxious to try these
things since it is a big part of the added capabilities of the Zaurus
over my old PDA.  I'll write about them when I get there.

I think I'll stop here for now just so this can get published.  I am
impressed with the hardware, especially for the price.  I have seen some
software issues that may drive me to Open Zaurus sooner rather than
latter, but the point there is that I *can* move to something else.
I'll write more about that another time.
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