http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/ Engadget Comments for Sharp Zaurus SL-C3200 PDA with 6GB HDD http://www.engadget.com/media/feedlogo.gif http://www.engadget.com en-us Copyright 2012 Weblogs, Inc. The contents of this feed are available for non-commercial use only. Blogsmith http://www.blogsmith.com/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/Mar 7th 2006 10:39AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
This couldn't be farther from the truth.]]>Mar 7th 2006 10:47AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
$800 is too much for something I could easily drop to its doom, though. My mobile gear needs to be replaceable in cost.]]>Mar 7th 2006 10:49AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/Mar 7th 2006 11:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
You suckaz!]]>Mar 7th 2006 11:13AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/Mar 7th 2006 11:22AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/Mar 7th 2006 11:33AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
http://www.openbsd.org/zaurus.html]]>Mar 7th 2006 11:39AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/Mar 7th 2006 12:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://archos.com/products/ip_centric/pma_400/ It's Zaurus meets fantasy touch screen iPod (with a little less style).]]>Mar 7th 2006 12:26PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/Mar 7th 2006 12:27PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
http://www.engadget.com/media/2006/02/apple_tablet.jpg

...except its real]]>Mar 7th 2006 12:55PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/Mar 7th 2006 1:00PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/Mar 7th 2006 1:06PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/Mar 7th 2006 1:28PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://static.flickr.com/45/109231227_f42a9dbea7.jpg?v=0
]]>Mar 7th 2006 1:52PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
Did nobody who designs portable devices own an NES growing up? The d-pad goes on the LEFT, people. ON THE LEFT. Not the middle, or the right, or the top-- THE LEFT.

/pet peeve]]>Mar 7th 2006 2:01PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/ "There was once a time when Sharp was a cutting-edge producer of PDAs, and the company's Zaurus was a market leader."

Uh...when was the Zaurus EVER a "market leader"? Sharp's share of the mobile device market has always been piffling. Zuarus has always been a "me too" product in a market lead by PalmOS and Windows Mobile. The only role Linux has in the mobile device market, is to serve as "man behind the curtain", keeping its ugly face hidden from the user.

Apple got the right forumula when developing OSX; by laying a brilliantly designed proprietary software layer (and GUI) on top of an open source foundation (BSD). More companies (Motorola being one shining example) are doing this now with mobile devices and the results are very promising. Toss this piece of crap QTopio Linux distro in the trash where it belongs! Along with the Zaurus. ]]>Mar 7th 2006 2:05PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/Mar 7th 2006 2:09PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
Peter]]>Mar 7th 2006 3:18PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
Guys, this ain't no damn PDA - it's a small computer. I can hook up my external drives through USB, plug in a mouse, and I'm working. I even have stuff like the Gimp and OpenOffice on there and an actual desktop. You can install several flavours of linux on it from basic PDA stuff to hardcore console-coding Debian shit. Can your Pocket PC do *that*?

If anyone doubts the Zaurus is kicking ass, you come and visit the OESF forum at http://www.oesf.org/forums/ and we'll show you what a Zaurus is really capable of. ]]>Mar 7th 2006 4:04PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/1) Lack of internal bluetooth / WiFi.
2) Sharp's complete failure to develop software, support the OSS community, or market the device.

Problem 1 is being dealt with by a couple very clever DIYers who have tappedtapped a coupleGPIO lines inside the C1000 to add a second USB host. Their goal is to mount a USB wifi dongle and a USB bluetooth dongle internally in the C1000 in the space where a HDD would be if it was a C3x00.

Problem two is the reason that Zaurus software development has been so slow. Because of the near useless code that Sharp releases, no less than 4 mutually incompatible OSS projects sprung up to replace it. This went a long way to fracturing a community that was already small as a result of Sharp not selling most recent Zaurii outside of Japan. Though progress has been slow the projects are really starting to show a polished alternative to otherr PDA OSes. Anyways, my point is: This newest Zaurus is adisapointment coming from a company that usually managed to stay ahead of the pack, the Zaurus and ans the Zaurus community are far from dead.

-John

PS: I typed this on my Zaurus. :p]]>Mar 7th 2006 5:08PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
gosh, engadget's 1337ness factor has descreased like a hundredfold in my eyes.]]>Mar 7th 2006 7:38PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
Plus if you want to debate that, you will be debating hundereds of thousands of people who love this site all over the world.

______________________________________________

As for the product, it does seem pretty nice, i like the SD card and yeah it runs linux, but it will need to become pretty popular for people to make good software for it. ]]>Mar 8th 2006 7:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
To endgadget, the Zaurus is indeed more than a pocket dictionary. For more info, see the following PIC thread about a Palm Infocenter moderator who is now a Zaurus user, he describes the unit in detail, and it might give you some Sharp perspective for future products. Good luck.

http://www.palminfocenter.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=30120]]>Apr 9th 2006 1:22PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/

I find it most useful as a system administrator, for browsing the web (runs Opera, and netfront), and ssh'ing into other (Linux and MacOS systems). I also have X11 and ethereal running on the stock Zaurus OS, ping, traceroute, tcpdump, and wellenrighter (a wardriver) so I can use it to diagnose networking problems.

The 5500 had a weak battery, and not enough memory. The 5600 was really the first decent Zaurus, nice battery. The 6000L was built like a brick, and you can still find them. Also it had an outstanding screen. The 3100 and 3200 are the best of the bunch however, overall. I'd like built in wifi but actually, the wifi card sticking out makes the thing easier to hold when I type.

Now, you can (and I did) get these for around $600, not $800. The place to go is www.conics.net. I bought one there, and it was shipped to me quickly from Japan, already translated to English. Then all I did was go to the link earlier in this post, follow the directions to add the software I desired. And I was in business.

I also have a CF ethernet card (wired) and a modem card for connectivity.

If you have $600 and are a Linux geek, and truly have a need for a PDA portable device, then this is a good thing to get. If you want a laptop, buy a laptop (I'm a heavy Powerbook user, and a professional Linux developer by day).

And yes, audio/iPod like support on the 3100/3200 is wonderful. As is mpeg movie playback.



]]>Apr 22nd 2006 2:46PMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
BTW if anyone wants copies of the books they're now FREE! Have a look at http://www.z4ck.org. Or paperbacks are avialable at Amazon.com]]>Jun 8th 2006 9:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/
The lack of wi-fi is because the C3xxx range is for Japan where they have always had other options - my PHS Alpha card (mobile phone network) had 128kbps internet access in 1997 when the GSM world had mobile connectivity at 9kbps and no full internet access. In other words you buy the modules for your Zaurus that you need for your network; wi-fi is just one choice. Don't try to judge this device based on low US expectations.

My Zaurus C3000 battery lasts for 7 hours without wi-fi and 3 hours with wi-fi. I can't find any other poweful PDA with that kind of battery life. Of course, simple PDAs low power devices can beat this, but then you lack other cool features.

It's not for teaching English, that's a very secondary use of this device - people are confusing the C3xxx range with the electronic dictionary devices that are so common in Japan. Having said that, the C3000 kicks the butt of ALL DenkouJiten - it's great for people learning Japanese.

There's more to say - but I don't really care.]]>Jul 26th 2006 11:25AMhttp://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/http://www.engadget.com/2006/03/07/sharp-zaurus-sl-c3200-pda-with-6gb-hdd/Aug 1st 2007 8:39PM