NEW clamshell model shipping NOV 10

[nianderson]

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/15/linux_4gb_hdd_pda/

[ScottYelich]

wtf?

416Mhz? 270?

why not 600?

no built in wifi? Pffft!

600mhz + wifi ... before I buy.

Scott

[technojunkie]

on the plus side it looks like it will still use QT/Linux and not Wince  Though I would have preferred 128MB RAM

[ScottYelich]

I'm hoping this is the new "c700" .. the lowest end, soon to be surpassed and forgotten.

:->

Scott

[clivel]

on the plus side it looks like it will still use QT/Linux and not Wince  Though I would have preferred 128MB RAM

Actually although I am no fan of Wince, I think Sharp would have been wise to have released Wince as an option. Sharp has had killer hardware, although I am disappointed that they didn't include WiFi & a faster processor, but their marketing of a Linux based handheld anywhere outside of Japan has been a total disaster.
If they had of looked at supporting the Pocket PC OS (the current name for Wince), they probably would be assured of a much larger market, which would then ensure that the Zaurus and 3rd party accessories would be easily available to us Linux users, and with a larger market, they may even be able to drop the price.
Unfortunately like it or not, Wince is really making large inroads in the PDA market steadily gaining on Palm. The one thing you can't fault MS on is perseverance and marketing. They took a crappy OS, modified and modified it, marketed the hell out of it. They still have a crappy OS, however with an enormous market share.

Perhaps the real solution would be for Sharp to upgrade the Pim apps, and to steal some of the MS marketing people  
Regards,
Clive

[Martin]

Hi all :-)

... step forward (?) or more a step backward !!!

Why those bad mechanical microdrive ... why so low ram? FLASH? Why now WiFi and / or BlueTooth? Only more CPU power? What does the BNattery life say?

Why a bad (smalller keyboard layout and this "trackball" or cursorbad :-( better to get a litter better keyboard - maybe change from foliage to real keys ...

I like my c860 so much ... waiting better for a real step forward ..

[_Psycho]

I'm hoping this is the new "c700" .. the lowest end, soon to be surpassed and forgotten.

:->

Scott

Me too thats what Im hoping. And i think thats what will happen. Sharp want to do money, in 3-4 months they get the models with 128 ROM / 128 RAM out with the 612 mhz, then they get the wifi / bt model out, then etc etc updating model = peoples buy more than 1 device

[pgas2]

Why those bad mechanical microdrive

Well they say hard drive, this could mean much much faster access

.. why so low ram? FLASH?

Again if it's a real HD, you could use an effective swap partition and  why do you want
a big flash when you have 4G?

[amrein]

If you forget the not included wireless feature (bluetooth + Wifi) and the not used 6000 wider/brighter screen and the still not provided usb host you have:

_ a better battery life
_ a 4Go harddrive to be able to use tons of software music video and data. Want to install Debian ARM or netWinder Redhat  ARM distribution in your Zaurus? Or perhaps all pdaXrom or OE available curstomised software and new one?
_ an amazing joypad for games.

Bluetooth + Wifi + 6000 wider/brighter screen + usb host are the only missing feature to have a perfect PDA. Perhaps using a x86 compatible processor and PC architecture (like the OQO) would have even broken expectation.

If I haven't  already had a SL-C760, the SL-C3000 would have been very interesting.

I read that Sharp is thinking of releasing this device in US/EU. Sometimes in the future, pdaXrom and/or OE will be able to provide a complete and stable operating system for PDA. I mean sell the OS, sell software support, sell the build/port of new Linux kernels to new devices, provide channels for money flow... Don't know if they will be quick enough to catch Sharp attention before the SL-C3000 reach our markets.

[CoreyC]

Convenient news a day after I permently bricked my c760.


If nothing else, maybe this will lower the price of the c7/860.

[tmarks11]

A microdrive was a killer accessory back when a SD 64 MB or CF 128 MB were $200, and that was the only way to get that kind of storage density in a small form factor for a reasonable price.

Now that you can pick up a CF 2 GB card for $180, or a SD 1 GB card for $90 (2 GB released soon at $190), there is no real good applicaton for a HDD in a handheld.  All you get is a thicker unit, since it will need a larger battery to support the increased load.  The HDD will also make the unit run hotter.

This belongs in the "What were they thinking catagory".  

OK, maybe they wanted to score a "First HDD in a PDA" ribbon, but why not strike for the "First cigarette lighter in a PDA" ribbon or something equally as ludicrous.

Of course, the good news is that with a new unit out, maybe the 760/860 price will crash another $100 and make some of us wannabes a Zaurus owner.

I hope Zaurus doesn't switch to PPC or WinCE. I converted (reluctantly) to PalmOS since I couldn't stand the PPC, despite forcing myself to try for 3 years.  With Sony bowing out of the PDA world, PalmOne will probably not offer any form factors that I am interested in (especially with their quality control issues related to the T/C).  Sharp is my next big hope.

Why would a HDD be faster access the RAM or ROM?  It doesn't follow...

[Guest]

Why would a HDD be faster access the RAM or ROM?  It doesn't follow...

Faster than ram? not likely. Probably faster than the current FLASH-ROM though, it's pretty slow compared to your average hard drive or even a compact flash card.

[Guest_guest]

Faster than ram? not likely. Probably faster than the current FLASH-ROM though, it's pretty slow compared to your average hard drive or even a compact flash card.

Now i'm no hardware guru, but i'm guessing that a hdd that small, will no be as fast as his bigger brothers.

Unless you ARE a hardware guru on these kinds of devices,(ant that's realy not meant sarcasticly) perhaps it's a bit more efficient to simply pull up a few white papers about the speeds of those 2 types of devices.
Where the most crucial point will probebly be the initial time it takes to find a random point of data without prior spin up. (of the hdd)

becouse pda's put most of there stuff in memory the hdd will probebly only be spinning when it's actualy needed. To preserve energy.
Which is another point of interest, how much energy is a hdd going to take.

Now i don't know the answers to those questions, but i'm guessing the flash would win.
simply becouse it's designed from the beginning as a energy preserving data storage, and a hdd isn't. (although the mini hdd's offcourse are designed with this, but i'm more talking about the global technologie involved)