C3000 As Photo Viewer/editor?

[MikeB]

Hi board,

Am tossing up between getting a C3000 and a Windows Pocket PC like the Fujitsu Loox 720 to do photo viewing/editing while away travelling. Also a bit of web browsing and e-mail sending, which I would get a CF Wifi card for.

Does anyone have any recommendations for photo viewers/basic editors for the C3000 that will cope with, say, 4 or 5 megapixel images, without taking ages to load?

How easy is it to get such software working? I'm not a Linux neophyte, and appreciate the flexibility and stability of it compared to Windoze, but the whole rigmarole of compiling/dependencies/library mismatches/recompiling etc and going round in circles for hours really gets my goat sometimes...!!

Does anyone use their C3000 for this function?

Mike

[Jonathan]

Hi Mike,

I have been doing oh so many things on my C3000, including writing and compiling C and Perl progs (using dev-image-1.5 or the newer 1.6), PIM use, ebook reading, interfacing with robots and harddisks, etc, etc.  It performs the role wonderfully.  For a pocket-sized toy it really is amazing.

But my one angle that may be of more interest to you is that I also have a new Dell Axim x50v.  That's the newest Pocket PC model with VGA screen 600+Mhz processor and build in wi-fi and BT.  I got it last month in an effort to burn up the remainder of a soon-to-expire budget.  So now I have two hot new PDAs to play with.

Now for an quick unbiased(!) comparison of the two...

Axim x50v
Pros: so small and light - noticeably smaller and lighter than C3000. Excellent syncing with windows.  Very fast.  Cheap.  Docking cradle (which also has bay for recharging extra battery) .  Battery small and light but seems to last a long time.  Built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.  Built in mic.  Nice VGA screen.  Stable operating system.  Built-in battery backup (you don't know how useful that is until you need to swap batteries in the field.)  I keep a 1GB sd card and 4GB microdrive in the slots and they work faultlessly.
Cons:  Lobotomised operating system - oh so frustrating.  Bits of software crippled by M$ to make life hard for those with any imagination or ambition.  No keyboard - really annoying.  Built-in handwriting input not so efficient.  PDA apps simple but good enough (but I hate blocks for appointments without any text in them in week and month view - plenty of space for text like on C3000).  Free but good software difficult/impossible to find.  Needs to be docked to install most software.  Build quality reflects price - but still nice enough.  No USB host.  Occasionally can't read downloaded text files (Why?).  Fails to read pics from my new Canon A95 camera - very annoying.  Large files very slow to load into Word.  BT keyboard had to be replaced already.  Web browser seems to only have one window - annoying in the extreme.

SL-C3000
Pros: beautiful screen.  Extremely useful and tactile keyboard.  Really nice flip screen that keeps it from getting hurt.  Great build quality.  Built in hard disk.  USB host (very very useful).  Excellent free software easy to find and easy to install stand-alone. Much better set of built-in software.  Better Word/Excel clones than those on Axim!  Incredibly powerful operating system.  If you need Japanese then the C3000 includes excellent dictionaries/encyclopaedia.  Easy to write programs standalone.
Cons: Mine had a problem and has had to go back (see my other posts in past) but this problem doesn't seem at all common (again, see the replies to my other post).  Built-in PIM software not so fast - Qalender much faster and more versatile. No wi-fi or BT built-in is a bit annoying.  No mic.  No backup battery - Aaaah!


Well the C3000 has been away for the last week or two (they're taking a long time just to get me a replacement...but it was bought through the corporate system here in Japan and things can drag on a bit) and I've had to use just the Axim.  Oh how I miss the C3000!

The bottom line is that if you just want a PDA then the Axim is great and the C3000 is very good.  If you want to do almost anything else outside what M$ thinks you should do then things get much much trickier.  It's quite amazing how restricted the operating system is compared to the C3000.  It's a philosophy thing - M$ spoon feeds you sweet goo while holding your hands behind your back while Sharp gives you a tasty and nutritional meal but makes you learn how to use a knife and fork yourself.  

If I had the choice of with the Axim or the C3000 I'd go straight to the C3000.

There, that was quite unbiased, wasn't it...?

Jonathan

[MikeB]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the relatively unbiased comparison. :-)

Do you know of any good photo viewing/basic editing applications for the C3000 that can cope with 5 megapixel images? Or am I going to have to try and compile my own (with all the nightmares that could involve...)?

Mike

PS there are a few Windows PPC's with USB Host now - the Fujitsu is one. Driver support is pretty limited though....

[nilch]

MikeB

There are a few other threads here for one,  and this question here, which talk about graphics manipulation on the zaurus.

True, while there are lots of Image viewing software for the zaurus, many can't seem to cope with very large files (5 megapixel and above) and then some have some editing features others dont have quite that many.

But again, from my point of view, there are some command line tools (you have to type commands in the terminal window) which do this job very well and YES, with large image files. As others pointed me to it - ImageMagick - I have now become hooked to it and use it regularly to work with my images from my Canon Camera CF card directly on my Z - so much that of late I seem to be speaking like an Imagemagik advocacy group all by myself.

Also Imagemagik works on Linux desktop, on Windows desktop as well as your Zaurus, so you can use the same tool anywahere as you go from your desktop to your Zaurus or vice-versa. Oh one other point I like to stress - Imakemagick works with single images at a time or multiple batch of images at the same time - so to convert and resize many large images at a go - you can use batch processing to convert all at one go.

Here is the link to ImageMagick binaries for the Zaurus. It should work on the C3000 too.

I dont know how good the comparable apps are on the Windows PocketPC and how good they are on working with large images, so I wont comment there.

Allbest


Note : no compile/make/recompile/dependancy checks necessary. Just unzip the imagemagick for Zaurus file and copy the files to your Zaurus (on SD or CF or internal as you wish). Works out of the box.

[kahm]

Hi Jonathan,

Thanks for the relatively unbiased comparison. :-)

Do you know of any good photo viewing/basic editing applications for the C3000 that can cope with 5 megapixel images? Or am I going to have to try and compile my own (with all the nightmares that could involve...)?

Mike

PS there are a few Windows PPC's with USB Host now - the Fujitsu is one. Driver support is pretty limited though....
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What kind of editing do you want to do? I've viewed 5.1 mpixel images on my 860 without much trouble.

[MikeB]

I seem to be speaking like an Imagemagik advocacy group all by myself.

From reading some other posts, yes, you do!

Imagemagick or GIMP looks like it should probably do what I require. Basically I want to be able to check that files I have copied off my camera's SD card onto the USB HDD have transferred correctly, delete any poor ones, maybe crop, rotate or resize but that's about the extent of the editing I'd do.

If image viewing was all I wanted I'd buy one of those Image Tank things with a LCD, but the ability to send e-mail/surf the web/write my travel journal all from the same device is excellent.

Note : no compile/make/recompile/dependancy checks necessary. Just unzip the imagemagick for Zaurus file and copy the files to your Zaurus (on SD or CF or internal as you wish). Works out of the box.

Fantastic, I still have nightmares about circular dependencies, missing libraries, kernel recompiles, aaaagh! :-)

I think my dilemma comes down to this...

Sharp C3000
+ 4GB HDD
+ integrated keyboard
+ proper OS, not a crippled "pocket" OS
+ more flexibility and expandability
+ Not Microsoft

Fujitsu Loox 720
+ integrated Wifi/BT
+ can buy in the UK with a 3 year warranty
+ better battery life (11hr vs 7hr for Zaurus)
+ cheaper
+ Simple OS, if you stick to the restrictions M$ impose

Both have VGA and USB Host, which are essential for me.

Hmmm! I have some thinking to do!

Mike

[Bombur]

Have a look at tkcGallery.  I can look at Megapixel photos no problem.

www.thekompany.com

Yes it is pay for software but I find that it is stable, easy to use and with a good feature set.

J.

[jpmatrix]

i've just found that : Tree!Explorer QT Plus+ Ver1.70
http://hpcgi2.nifty.com/taku2001/zau/texpl...qt_p/top_en.cgi

i'll try asap

[MRNUTTY]

i've just found that : Tree!Explorer QT Plus+ Ver1.70
http://hpcgi2.nifty.com/taku2001/zau/texpl...qt_p/top_en.cgi

i'll try asap
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seems like a good tool, however, for the money i would like a full english version.any ideas?