What are the Zaurus' like?

[peterjb31]

I have been using a zire 72 and to put things simply am not happy with it. I need something with more power, a hard drive and preferably linux. My question is does anyone here know what the Zaurus line is like.

ps I was satisfied with my zire until the charging pin inside the unit broke and I now have to charge it through USB which is very tedious. Broke 1 week after warranty, typical!

[ntw1103]

Well, I have only had my Zaurus for a week now, but I love it. I don't have the hard drive unit though. I will start with the build of the device. It is made out of a hard plastic, and seems very tough. The stylus is very well placed. The hinge and swivel are very well made, I would say better then on a NX-70. The battery is easy to replace, just flip a switch, and it opens up, but the switch is positioned so that you will not bump it.

The keyboard:
The keyboard is soft, like a NX keyboard. (Unless you get a newer model.) it is very easy to type on, the keys are nicely spaced. Even with my somewhat big fingers. Holding and typing is easy, because of the shape of the device. Unless you are typing in the dark, the keyboard is not lit. But if you tip the screen down, you can use the light from the screen to type, but it makes it a little harder to type.

The screen:
The screen is 640x 480, which after using a NX-70 seemed to be huge. The colors a very vibrant and the screen is very clear. The screen is not Trans reflective; it is a CG Silicon, a screen made by sharp, only for the Zaurus line. Indoors the screen is really easy to read. Outside, the screen is a little bit harder to read. But you counter the sunlight; you can turn up the brightness. The brightness is like twice what my NX was.

The Card slots.
The Zaurus has 1 SD slot, and 1 CF slot, the SD slot only works for memory cards, and does not support SDIO (spelling), the CF slot works with type I, and type II, and also works with many other cards, such as a Camera card, WiFi, Blue tooth, GPS, and many others.

The Battery:
The battery is a Lithium-ion 3.7v. 1700mAh (or 1800mAh on newer models) I read in a review that if the screen is set to 1/2 brightness, and playing .mp3's at 1/2 volume the battery will last 8 hours. Yesterday, I played .mp3's on it 5 hours. With the screen off, and I did not notice a very large drop. I can go two days on a charge with normal use. As for charging speed, I am not sure, I plug it in, go to bed, and when I get up it is charged.

The Sound:
It does have a built in speaker, but I would not suggest listening to music on it. It does not get very loud and crackles when tuned up, but it does have a head phone plug. With head phones the sound quality is very good, I didn't notice any buzz, though when plugged in, and volume is set full, there is a small buzz. But I have only turn the volume up full once, it gets very loud.

That is all hardware, if you would like to know about Software you tell me.
A small note, this is the most stable pda I have every used.
Ntw1103

[shieldvideo]

Well, I have only had my Zaurus for a week now,

-snip-

That is all hardware, if you would like to know about Software you tell me.
A small note, this is the most stable pda I have every used.
Ntw1103
Please! Tell us about the software. Minimal details about the default palm apps, more in depth about media and other apps.

Thanks.

[ntw1103]

Okay, here is the review on the software.
All work with multitasking, except Kino2

File browser”
The file browser is easy to use. The only problem I have with it, is that it is hard to move a file from one place to another. But it can be done, by Cut, and Paste.

Calendar:
When you first open it up, it displays your day view, showing everything that is scheduled for the day. It takes 5 taps with my palm for me to set an alarm, and 7 on the Zaurus. But the Zaurus has more options.
Address Book:
Very easy to use, and supports the Tab button, so it is easy to add all information with just the keyboard. It can do everything that the one on the palm can so far, and a little more. If you look somebody up “john doe” and you click on it, it will show all the info, and if there is a email address, you can click on it and it opens into the email program.
Email:
The email program seems to work great, but I don’t have a WiFi card to try it out.
Hancam Word:
I really like this program, it works great, like MS word with a few less features, like spell checker. :( The only other problem I have had with it is when opening really large .txt it does not like apostrophe’s and displays them as boxes. But if you open small .txt, or large .doc , it does not have that problem. This program works really well multitasking, such as with the music player.

Music Player:
The built in music player works great. The play list is very easy to use. And gets very loud, but as I said before the built in speaker stinks. But it works great with head phones.
This program does not play .ogg or stream. And I have not tried any other formats.

Video Player:
I have not used the built in video play, because it only plays mpeg1 movies. So I use mplayer with Kino2, after setting up this program (took about 20min.) it works great. I only tried .avi and .wmv the playback seems to be pretty good, but I noticed the closer the video is to the screen size the better it runs. Playing a 480x320 movie clip, I did not notice any skipping. And I was able to watch a whole movie and still have about ½ my battery left.
Games:
There are lots of games available, but a lot are just hard to find.
Emulator:
I have only used a Snes emulator, and it works almost perfect. I only notice two slow downs, and on the super Nintendo, it slows down in the same spot. The button, take a few times being killed in Zelda to get used to.

If there are any programs that you would like me to review that I missed, just tell me.
Ntw1103

[I Like My UX50!]

They are the special species of Dinosaurus, at least in Japan ;)

I have C3100 recently, & they are great--if you have the time & patience. Having said that, I like it too. I am using the Sharp Qtopia. And others use others se Cacko & others, so the programs & software may differ slightly.

SNES will work perfectly without any slowdon on Cacko with overclocking program :)

C3200 recently cameout, but the only diff is larger HD from 4-6gb & minor color diff (upgraded Japanese softwares like dictionary & maps don't count).

Check this great site for comprehensive look:

http://www.users.on.net/~hluc/myZaurus/

[Skay]

Regarding the Addressbook in the Zaurus. I read somewhere that it won't search the American alphabet? only Japanese?

[Cyberdoc]

Regarding the Addressbook in the Zaurus. I read somewhere that it won't search the American alphabet? only Japanese?
In owning a Sharp SL-C3100, there are alternate PIM apps like KO/Pi & KA/Pi where you can search addresses and appointments in the american alphabet easily.