Well one thing I did this semester was device analysis in Human Computer Interaction. This is a device analysis I wrote for the SL-5500 I decided before I publish it out on my site yall should read it.

Tell me what you think. If my conclusions are wrong tell me why. I tried to be as unbiased as I could. I still can add to or brush up the paper. Before I publish it out side of school.

http://www.thebattlefields.com/images/sofa/zaurus_review.pdf

Under "Flexibility", you fail to mention the key attribute that attracted me to the Z in the first place: the ability to write and upload my own applications. In that sense, the Z is not a PDA, or, at least, not ONLY a PDA. When I was looking around for a portable computer, only the Z provided the user the ability to write applications using only the functions provided in the basic, off the shelf, suite; that is, JEODE. In addition, the CF and SD slots afforded me virtually limitless expandability.

Brian, overall a great report. However I would polish the structure and language up, before publishing it outside of school ( if you want to do that), as it does not sound very professional the way it is now...

Thanks,
Ok, I will see what I can do in that department. Writing is not one of my strong areas. I have Dyslexia and Dysgaphia so even through i'm good with technology. My language skills are bellow my education level. I may get my mom to help me edit it. She majored in English.

I am also going to build on the flexibility section because as with him the ability to use it as a development platform was a strong point of me buying it.

Nice review.

I am not sure that I would compare it to a normal PDA, especially when you consider what you are reviewing is a discontinued device which is now running custom software Hell you can't go out and buy these in the shops We are now more into hot rodding country Take a good solid device, decide that it isn't dead yet and there is plenty of power left in it and tweak it till it kicks arse again

I am not sure how many people buy Zaurii primarily as a PDA, I didn't. I wanted something that talked SSH that I could connect to my phone

For me the Zaurus is why I don't have to haul a laptop around, and I don't have a wizzy 3100 or anything just a plain old 5500, if i am going to the colo just for some routine stuff I leave the lappy in the car, if I need to connect to the network for simple stuff I connect the Zaurus, if I get a systems alert I can use my Z and phone from anywhere I can get a signal, being able to login to servers and kick them from the pub is very useful

It is a technological swiss army knife, I have ethernet, wifi, bluetooth and irda. It holds half a gig of data which I can expand by putting in a bigger SD card, and are now around £80 on ebay.

For normal PDA users I think that they will be happier elsewhere as they will want something that just works, unfortunatly OZ is not there yet, this is not a criticism just a state of play. Then again I don't class the Z as a PDA, it is full machine that fits in your pocket, or actually Sharp did get it right with the naming, it is a Personal Mobile Tool.

Oh and sniffing the wifi networks when you are waiting in the queue at the supermarket is geeky fun too

LOL you do that too? Iv acualy done that on a cupple ocasions I even sniffed one in a move theater. My feance hit me in sthe sholder.

Man...we've ALL done that

I used to do little warwalking surveys at work (possibly not such a bright idea since I worked at a government installation and signed away my legal/constituational rights whenever I set foot on the property...), security was pretty good, I only ever discovered one unsecured AP and successfully reached the internet (I reported it of course). But one day I forgot to turn it off as I drove home. 25 minutes of driving and I found like 300 networks...most of them WIDE open.

"Sweetie Z...we're going to do GREAT things together... "

That's one of the main things I miss about the my old 5500 (sold to help finance the purchase of a C-1000). Kismet and Wellenreiter were pretty simple to get up and running on them. Though I've heard others have had success, I still haven't gotten them to work reliably on my C-1000. Wellenreiter works, but crashes seconds after it starts displaying info. It's like a wifi-snarfing-geek-tease...



As for the paper. Yeah...get it proof read, but other than that I enjoyed reading it. It touched on all the major points and was pretty well articulated. The conclusion is spot on as I'm sure most other Z owners/users will agree...

The one thing I might have done differently had I written it was give a bit more review of the keyboard since the topic is about interacting with the device (and that was one of the features that attracted ME to the zaurus line). But then you might have been focusing more specifically on the soft interaction aspect...

Good job, and thanks for sharing...