OESF Portables Forum
General Forums => New products and alternatives => Topic started by: zmiq2 on June 09, 2008, 06:23:24 pm
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Uhm... every time i'm thinking more and more about getting one. I have resisted for a year, but I can feel some weakness inside of me and I may fall into buying one.
Are you also tempted to get one and definitely get rid of your Zaurus?
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As an owner of an iPod Touch and several Zs, I think I have a bit of a Z specific outlook on what you are asking.
I really like my Touch but there is no way it can completely replace my Zs even with the new OS features announced today. Here are the reasons why the iPhone 3G or an upgraded Touch will not be fully replacing my Z.
1) only allow view (no editing) of office docs and only in the MobileMail app
2) not every app can rotate into landscape
3) typing on the virtual keyboard gets annoying after a while. It is fine for stuff like Calendar, URLS and a few contacts but it utterly sucks with you to do serious note taking
4) playing games in ScummVM is an exercise in frustration thanks to the small hot spots compared to the size of my finger tips
5) cellphone data plans are still too pricey in my neck of the woods
My iPod Touch has replaced my Zaurus for many functions though.
1) Mobile Web Browsing. Safari is renders nicely and quickly. Safari start up time is negligible unlike FireFox on my Z. The the two finger pinch and stretch zoom in and out feature is fast and a god send on a small screen.
2) Music listening. The coverflow interface and small form factor of the Touch made the switch a no brainer for me.
3) Movie watching. Handbrake on my Mac and my Touch made watching movies on my Z a thing of the past. No artifacts or audio and video sync problems any more. I used to spend more time fiddling with the encoding and decoding settings on my my PC and my Z than I did watching the results.
Anyway those are my thoughts on the subject.
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I own an iPod Touch, Zaurus C3100 and other gadgets.
Each one has its specific area of use. None is "optimal" for everything.
I use the iPod for quickly looking for new mails, weather and stock info. And as a music player in my car.
I use the Zaurus to do "work" on the road, i.e. writing notes, collecting ideas, calendar etc. Here the mechanical location of VGA display and QWERTY keyboard are better than with the N810.
Buying an iPhone 3G? Probably yes, but only to get a new phone with increased capabilities. It will not make the iPod or Zaurus obsolete.
-- hns
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Uhm... every time i'm thinking more and more about getting one. I have resisted for a year, but I can feel some weakness inside of me and I may fall into buying one.
Are you also tempted to get one and definitely get rid of your Zaurus?
As a former Newton owner (and therefore frustrated Apple user) I have a rather negative attitude about Apple devices.
When Apple canceled the Newton they have left completely alone an intact community of a rather sophisticated device. Since them they have failed to deliver something equivalent because they have also completely sold the knowhow.
So I expect from Apple a similar behavior for iPods and iPhones- those devices have a rather short product life cycle and the embedded and encapsulated character makes it rather difficult for a community to keep it updated.
This is what I like about the Zaurus- it can be kept up to date by using Angstrom or pdaXrom and still have a small state of the art computer (though with some functional limitations because the community has to keep up with developing- see web browser issues for Angstrom).
So my temptation to buy a mobile Apple appliance is rather limited.
Oliver
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I own an iPhone and for me it does not quite replace my Z, but I believe it soon will once the third party software starts coming out. Like HoloVector, I've found that I can't do some things on my iPhone that I did on the Z: read/edit various formats of docs; use it as a portable drive; ebook reader; wide variety of games. Other things I can do on the iPhone are by far the best you will get in a handheld: music; video; web browsing; ease of navigation.
Once the third party applications start rolling out to plug some of the holes, I believe it will easily replace the Z and with the SDK, those of you who are programmers should be able to produce some kick-butt applications that will easily be made available to all users of the iPhone/iPod touch through the 'App Store'.
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In a word: No.
In a few more: The N810 may if Debian gets working (eg, WEP) well on it, but not some locked-down Apple product. The N810 is the only thing that's come CLOSE to the Z, IMO.
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Not at all.
Possibly a pandora, but so far the Z does what I want it to. Honestly I don't think you can make something that is both a good phone and a good handheld, unless the emphasis is on the handheld, and the 'phone' was pretty much just awirelessly tethered earpiece, though some sort of discreet dialing gadget migh be handy, too. On that note, I'll go see how the neo is faring
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I have both the iphone 3g (1 week old) and a few zaurii. The iphone does replace my zaurus for the main reason I bought a zaurus. It is now my primary PDA. It is the start of the convergeance device I have been waiting for. There is a telnet client for it, but I'm really waiting for an ssh/sftp client. I miss kdepim pi, but the iphone syncs with my macs easily.
The zaurus still has its uses. Just the other day I used it to minicom into a couple of MGE UPSes and I will keep bringing it into work, but I will no longer take it with me every where.
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I've used Palms, a PocketPC (for a short while) and recently a phone with touch screen, and frankly, I sorely miss the qwerty kb on the C1000.
I've heard of how the kb made the major diff, but never really knew it was that great.
For me, onscreen keyboards are just not good enuff compared to qwerty buttons. Of late, I've not been using my Z, but only because of a change in my daily regime. Also, I'm trying out the (not so) latest UMPCs and figuring out how it can fit into my regime.
So, chances are the iPhone 3G will not be my next zaurus.