First Look: The Sharp Zaurus SL-5500
Review By Dave Ruske | April 01, 2002
Category: not categorized
Long before anyone heard of Palm, Sharp owned a large segment of the electronic organizer market. These gadgets were little more than address books, calendars, and calculators all rolled into one, and usually offered a simple keyboard-based interface. Then Palm blasted onto the scene, eventually licensing their OS. Microsoft came from behind with some clamshell flops, then a "Palm-size PC" flop, then finally a credible Pocket PC with some strong hardware support from names like HP and Compaq. It seemed as though Sharp had been lost.
Now Sharp has once again entered the game with their new SL-5500 Personal Mobile Tool (which I'll call a PDA anyway). This device targets the high-end of the handheld computer/PDA market, an area currently dominated by Microsoft's Pocket PC.
Hardware-wise, the device is similar to the current crop of Pocket PCs.
Hardware-wise, the device is similar to the current crop of Pocket PCs. Like most Pocket PCs, the device gets its steam from a 206 MHz Strong ARM processor, and drives a brilliant 65,536 color display at a resolution of 240x320 pixels. The reflective LCD can be easily read even in bright sunlight.
Pocket PCs typically feature some sort of plug-in expansion for memory cards or peripherals. Sharp's SL-5500 has two such slots, one for Secure Digital cards (MMC cards also work) and one for Compact Flash. There's also an IR port for file or record transfers, USB connectivity to Windows for synchronizing data, and a headphone jack for listening to MP3s or MPEG-1 movies. Voice recording can be supported by plugging in a microphone.
Like Palms and Pocket PCs, buttons on the bottom act as shortcuts to frequently used applications. In Pocket PC-like fashion, you'll also find a four-way cursor button and a selection button, allowing many operations to be carried out without the stylus.
Two things really set this gizmo apart from the Pocket PC crowd, though. First, a light pull on the base of the device slides down a panel to reveal a tiny keyboard, an input method popularized by RIM's BlackBerry. I was skeptical about this at first, but after even a few hours of use I can see that this is going to win followers, and very likely spawn imitators.
The second thing that sets it apart is what's missing. This thing looks like a Pocket PC in most respects, right up until you turn it on. There's not a shred of Microsoft code in this machine. Sharp itself isn't standing on any mountains shouting about what is running on the device, which tells me that Sharp knows what they're doing. Most people don't give a rip about the OS the device is running, but what it can do for them and their business.
If you've been following sites such as PocketAnywhere, though, you're already aware of what's under the hood: it's Linux. Unlike the Pocket PC which runs an entirely different architecture than Windows NT or XP, this is the real deal. For the Linux hardcore crowd, a small download even lets them run a "bash" shell prompt and scratch at the OS.
When does the OS matter? When you're an enterprise developing apps for deployment within your company. Because the source code for Linux is readily available to developers, they're not dependent on someone else's support for bug fixes or patches. They don't have to worry about this model being obsolete next year, because the supplier has moved on to the Next Big Thing.
More importantly, the Zaurus offers Java support in the form of the Jeode PersonalJava runtime. Java enjoys strong industry support and a loyal developer following. Even Microsoft has paid the language the flattery of imitation with their new C# language. Again, users care about applications that get a job done, not a software development environment... but it may be of vital interest to the enterprise market.
Over the next month or two I'll be putting the Zaurus through its paces, and I'll be posting my findings on PocketAnywhere. This piece will serve as an introduction so we don't have to rehash the nuts and bolts of the Zaurus later. Today my PDA of choice is still a Palm m505. Will the Zaurus be able to turn my head?
[Click here to read the second of our Zaurus articles.]
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