Hello everybody, I am a longtime HP 200LX (DOS) and HP Jornada 720 (WinCE) user and I am seriously considering a move to to the SL-C series.
There are apparently a lot of long time 200LX users moving quite happily to the Cxxx(x) series Zaurii.
I have a few questions and was wondering if the helpful people on this forum could answer them.
#1 There seem to be a lot of different software environments for the Zaurii. I'm wondering if you could tell me the pluses and minuses of each of these:
* Built-in Sharp Qtopia
* Cacko (enhanced Qtopia?)
* pdaX (X11 for Zaurus)
* Debian Arm
* GPE
* Opie
Sharp - Qtopia 1.5. It works. Looks kinda ugly. Straight English translation is pretty good, but you're stuck with a little bit of Japanese here and there.
Cacko - Qtopia 1.5 - Sharp rom compatible, Looks great, 100% English translation. Better support for wireless/BT/etc. Probably the most popular replacement rom.
PDAXrom - Based on X11. You can compile most X based apps for it. Cons - it's still in heavy development. It is getting there, but requires work to get going nicely. You can't run most Zaurus software.
Debian ARM - Full linux distro that runs on the Z. X server is slow because it doesn't have acceleration, but I think you can combine it with PDAXrom. Takes a *lot* of space. The C3000 is the best suited Z for it, due to the hard drive.
GPE - A version of OZ (OE?) that runs with an X server. I'm not even sure it is available for the C series. Even if it is I think development is lagging on it. If you want X stick with PDAXrom or Debian.
Opie - The main verson of OZ/OE. More modern compiler, work being done on 2.6 kernel, a fork of the open source Qtopia from Trolltech. Also under heavy development. Lots of people use it without too many issues, but YMMV. It has compatibility problems with software intended for Sharp Roms. You can get some of it running using compatibility libs (like Opera), but stability becomes an issue.
AFAIK, Cacko and/or Sharp are the most stable (because they are basically the same.)
#2 Also, does power management work well on all of them? I support PCs (and use Linux on my desktop and laptop) and have noticed that many portable computers do not have good power management in Linux.
Power management works fine. The Z's come from the factory with Linux on them, so it is tailored for proper power management.
#3 How reliable is the hard drive on the 3000? If the palmtop somehow was dropped or fell off a desk, would my data be hosed?
If it wasn't accessing the drive, you'll be fine dropping it off the desk. I'd be more worried about the screen. The microdrives are pretty rugged. For concrete examples you can look up the Hitachi 4gb drive on the net to get the specs. They're also used in all sorts of mp3 players like the iPod mini. I suspect you'll be more likely to kill the entire Z before you'd be able to kill just the drive.
That doesn't mean you shouldn't make backups, though.
#4 Aside from a slightly faster processor, is there really any hardware difference between the 1000 and the 860?
Faster processor, much nicer keyboard, slightly bigger battery, and USB host suport if you have a mini-a to Male-A cable. The 860 is a little smaller and lighter.
#5 How good is the build quality on the Zaurii? My Jornada 720 is horrible in this respect and has had to go in for repairs 5 times since I bought it in 2001. Does the screen rotating feature break?
I'd be carefull with the SD slot - that seems to be the most common problem that I've seen. There were sound issues on the 760's as well. I've used my 860 every day for 6 months and there's no sign of any problems. My 5000d is over 4 years old now and it's still working perfectly.
#6 How fast can you type on these things? I can get about 70wpm on my HP palmtops. If I have something in the CF slot, does it make it harder to type?
You can't touch type on them unless you have *very* small hands. I don't remember how big the 200LX keyboard is. Thumbboarding on them can close 40WPM.
#7 How readable are the screens? Can you read them in sunlight? How about for gaming? Are they fast enough for it?
In the shade or artificial light, the screen will utterly kick the a** off of any screen you've every seen on a palmtop. Their only weakness is sunlight - they're still plenty readable when you turn the brightness up, though. I used mine as a map wandering around Kyoto without trouble. It isn't something you'd want to sit and read for hours in direct sunlight.
The screens are plenty fast for gaming and video. Extremely sharp, good contrast, great colour, no blur.
#8 How fast is the pdaX ROM? Does it take forever to start up Firefox or Gaim?
PDAXrom itself is pretty usable. Firefox is a hefty program for the little Z, though. It's been posted that the start times are over a minute, but it is quite usable when loaded.
#9 Are there any tabbed terminal programs available?
embeddedkonsole is tabbed. Comes by default in Cacko, and probably Opie too.
#10 What kind of audio applications are available for the Zauri?
As in playback? Lots of differnet things will play OGG and MP3. If you mean sequencing, etc, not much. There was a thread not long ago about using the C64 emulator for playing SIDs.
Hmm. Too many quoted sections seems to break the forum.
