Review of Sharp Zaurus SL-6000

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May 07, 2004

BargainPDA.com has published a thorough (and extensive) review of Sharp's Zaurus SL-6000, a Linux based PDA that began shipping in the US in the fall of last year.

Reviewer Ian Giblin begins the review with a comparison of Zaurus models currently available, including the 5500, 5600, C760/C780, and SL-6000. Giblin then raves about the SL-6000's LCD, demonstrating its superiority with several clever screenshots.

Giblin then looks at the SL-6000's keyboard, which he says is "just pretty good." A photo of the keyboard next to the C-860 keyboard shows how much smaller it is. Amazingly, Giblin claims to have entire 8,000-word written the review on his C-860 using its tiny keyboard.

Giblin goes on to make many further observations, including:

Battery life is okay, when not using Wi-Fi
Software keyboard and handwriting recognition have a few quirks
The audio jack is meant for a telephone headset, not stereo headphones
New USB hosting enables connections to older Zaurus's USB device ports
Infrared works fine
It comes with OpenPDA from Metroworks, and Qtopia from Trolltech
The display zoom feature is really cool
Hancome Word and Spreadsheet are solid, especially with the hi-rez display
The audio/mp3 player can't save playlists
The stock video player is choppy, but can be replaced with third-party alternatives
Email client is good, and Opera browser is "awesome."
Tons of free and commercial Zaurus software is available
It comes with a bash shell, and you can telnet/ssh in
It's pricey

For more details, see the whole lengthy review.

Read review of Sharp Zaurus SL-6000

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