Hello All
I am a current owner of an SL-6000L, and am looking to upgrade. I am a Linux novice. I've been thinking about the 3200, but the price is a real drawback. I've seen some 1000's on ebay for around 300-400. What is the main difference between the 1k and the 3200? Is it the microdrive? And in terms of processing speed, how do these devices compare to the 6000? I really want to be able to run movies full screen at 30fps. This is no where near possible on the 6k. I suppose one of the drawbacks of the C series is the lack of integrated wifi. But its no deal breaker. So what do you think?

Thanks
-K

I'll just speak of the C1000, C3000, C3100, & C3200
They all have a pxa270 processor at 416mhz
The C1000 has 128MB of flash and 64MB of RAM. It has no internal hard drive, and no internal CF interface for a hard drive or card.
The C3000 has ONLY 16MB of flash, 64 MB RAM. It has a 4GB HDD with internal CF interface.
The C3100 is a cross between a C3000 & C1000
It has 128MB flash, 64MB RAM, and internal 4GB HDD, with internal CF interface.
The obvious change in the C3200 is a 6GB HDD instead of a 4GB HDD. (It's very much the same as a C3100 in it's hardware).
I have read there are some subtle differences with the C3200.
Search the forum for info about the C3200

I had a 6000L for more than a year, but I never used it much. I carried it with me, and it reminded me of appointments, but otherwise I simply did not make use of it to the extent I had used its predecessor, an HP 200LX.

I have now had a C1000 for two months, and I like it much better. The main difference is the keyboard, which I find much more usable, although not quite as good as the HP's. I also prefer the clamshell design, as I hardly ever want the keyboard and screen to be in the same plane.

Also, I can't count the 6000L's built-in wifi as an advantage. The no-name CF wifi card I use with the C1000 gives me much more range.

I wasn't interested in the other Cxx00 models, because of the microdrives.

They kinda get in the way though. I never really had problems with my 6000's wireless, though it was slightly modified.

Any particular reason?

This is very true.

I've used a C1000 and a C3200, and from my usage needs it comes down to power consumption and speed; price doesn't really factor - since I wanted a few GBs of storage (music etc.) and the ability to have OPIE and GPE co-installed I installed a 2GB SD in the C1000 (which brings the price close[ish] to a C3200). However the SD is slower than the C3200's microdrive, but the C1000 consumes less power (and therefore has a longer battery life). So like I say it comes down to speed vs battery life.

from what I've seen posted and experienced, the microdrives nowadays are much better than the ibm 360MB versions from the 1gen Zaurus era. I think the power draw for playing mp3 is not much of a factor because you get good battery life even if it draws more. Someone posted playing mp3s for ~24 hours with the screen off and I didn't notice the battery applet (another story) move when using it on my hour long commutes.

The speed of sd writes and reads IMHO is a bigger factor. It may not be noticeable playing MP3s, but you definitely feel it with movies or if you transfer your MP3s throught the zaurus.

I purchased a 3100 over a 1000 because I couldn't stand having that extra space empty.

The 6000 is a good machine, but for carrying around and typing which are important in everyday usage I think it is lesser than a clamshell. The screen is gorgeous and I have no complaints about the built in wifi.

The 6000 is ruggedized, has a beter screen and a worse keyboard. video playback is slower on the 6000, but adequate for decdnt results with qvga encoded videos.

The main issue is better rom setups on the clamshells.

OZ is trying to improve the problem

When you say internal CF interface do you mean that the microdrive is upgradeable?

Being a SL-6000L owner I use an IR keyboard with my Z when I want to type in meetings and WIFI is one of the main functions I used. I do not uses my Z as much as I use to since my ibook replaced my sl6k as my portable computer.

I guess I am one of the few who really did not care for the keyboard on the sl-c700 but I was a Treo 180 user so I like the thumb board for quick entry. I also could not get use to the larger keyboard with a wifi card in the sl-c700(usually used my ir keyboard with the sl-c700 when I used it).

I have thought about moving up to a SL-C3200 since I am uses to my 6k having a 4gb CF card and a 1gb sd in my Z now. With teh choices in roms for the c seriesthe only issue by using a CF wifi card is one of the things that holds me back other then money.

Yes, there are several posts where people have replaced the microdrive with a 4GB or a 8GB compactflash card.
And, (I think), one person replaced the drive with a 8GB drive.

In all honesty, my "reason" has more to do with superstition than hard data. I regard microdrives as inherently more fragile, vulnerable to mechanical shock, than flash drives. I've seen a few others express similar sentiments, so I know I am not alone in this.

However, I am also aware that current microdrives are much more robust than early ones. The difference in reliability between a microdrive and a CF card is probably slight, perhaps insignificant. And, as has been pointed out, the Cxx00 series is not ruggedized as the 6000 is, so the rest of the Zaurus may be more vulnerable to damage than the microdrive!

In other words, I know it may not make sense, but I still feel safer with flash drives than with microdrives. Others' mileage will vary, which is as it should be.

you can always replace the internal microdrive with a real big flash card if that makes you happier which you cannot do with a c1000 because it does not have the internal connector. besides, for those people worrying about the durability (ie, read/write cycles of the cf microdrives/cf flash) let me just say, that by the time they would fail, the prices for them would had also significantly dropped and you can easily replace them for a new one which you cannot do as easily with that 128MB nand flash that people are madly flashing and writing to.
and yes, you can use a big sd card instead and the newer ones are also really fast (as long as you use them with anything else but a zaurus)

From what it sounds like, you'll probably replace the 3200 before the drive dies anyway! I thought magnetic media wears out slower than flash anyway. Flash only has so many writes, at least that's what I thought. It may have changed.

I am pretty certain the C3200 supports SD cards larger than 1GB
2GB has been shown to work, but I'm not sure about 4GB
Look at this post:
http://www.oesf.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=18523

There probably will come a time when I want more storage than the combination of CF and SD cards will provide on my C1000. When that happens, I'll probably get over my reservations about microdrives and move up to a C3x00. And maybe by then I'll be interested in doing micro-hardware hacking, but it's not on my agenda for now!

Of course, with your help, Meanie, I will probably run out of storage on my flash cards much sooner. Your pdaXqt cramfs files have taken up permanent residence on my SD card. They take up a significant amount of space, but I like them too much to get rid of them.

Still, I used an HP200LX for more than ten years, with just 2 MB of RAM. Most of that time, I had a 5 MB PCMCIA card, although for the last few years I moved up to a 32 MB card. The C1000 still feels very spacious to me!

yeah, wait till you see the size of the new 0.8 files
I for one ran out of space long time ago (because I actually have a full wikipedia and many extra dictionaries on my Z as well) so I am getting myself an extra 4GB SD and 8GB CF card soon...

No, I think it's all still true. Flash memory (both cards and the internal NAND, will wear out after a certain number of write cycles. I accept that and it's not what I'm concerned with.

My concern is sudden failure as a result of relatively minor mechanical shock. Like, say, a drop of six inches or so. I don't think there is any question that microdrives have been vulnerable to this sort of failure in the past. The risk is probably much less with newer microdrives; really not worth worrying about. I'll get over it when I need to.

I've dropped my Z several times and go the scratches to remind me of it ;( but still no problems with the microdrive. I realise, you can throw the cf flash against the wall and it still works. i wouldn't do it with a microdrive though
in general, treat the Z like you would treat a laptop. if certain conditions are ok for a laptop, then the same should hold for the Z. my OQO has a freefall detection feature to park the hdd head automaticaly. it has a 1.8" toshiba hdd inside it. not sure whether microdrives have such a neat feature.
but I wouldn't take my Zaurus for a jog while listening to music on it. not sure whether it was designed for that, but that's what an ipod is for much lighter anyway for those long jogs...

There are a few times I miss having my 6k strapped to my arm as I was walking, the biggest problem was I only had weight ristance on one arm. Now with my nano I can not tell it is there when I am walking.

With the size of the arm inside a microdrive, any mechanical shock sufficient enough to cause a head crash will render the rest of the Z a pile of dust. I think I read somewhere they can survive a running shock of 40 to 50 G's. I'll go look that up real quick.


Well I was off a bit. Operational shock is 200 G for 2 milliseconds. Nonoperational is 2000 G for 1 millisecond.

if i remeber correcttly a 200G drop is 1M onto hard concrete (take those figures with a grain of salt)

i havent had a problem with them and i treat it fairly badly (playing music while walking/runnig droping it) it depends on your usage patterns really

what it dosent like is heavy vibration. when you go to read the head will vibrate and things go awry. walking and such is a better pattern as there are long periods of "stillness" followed by a change in direction (relitive low G as well, i would calculate about 0.5G, i can do the calcs if you want)

With flash how fast it wears out really depends on usage patterns, how many spare sectors are avalible. all chips have non acsesseble spare sectors so that they can "patch" the damadged sectors, the lowwer capacity chip you get the more spare sectors you get. this is mainly because they only use a few flash chip sizes and remap how many spare sectors there are. they might do it slightly difrently but i know thats how they used to do it

another thing that affects the "burn out" time of flash is the quality of the chips. cheap asin semiconductor manufacturers are known to have thier cards burn out faster. i belive this is because they use less of the "remap" sectors than others and hence they run out faster

if you want to do the calculations to estimate the life of a flash chip (that is until there is 1 unrecoverable sector) then the calculations are a bit difficult if you dont know things such as how many writes there are to a given device otherwise take 100000 and divide that by the number of writes to the same sector per day. this should give you an estimated lifetime in days. keep in mind its very rough and varies from manufacturer to manufacturer

for refrence i have dropped my Z from 2M onto hard concrete while active and had no damadge sustained to the HD that normal tools can detect, it still works fine. i have also dropped it onto carpet from a hieght of 1m and it still works, they are tough, not as tough as a CF card (which you can nail to a tree and they still work, cant remeber the link) but quite close