Just a quick note about the deficiencies of the sl-5500 compared to the other models, and what you can do about them:
1) Fly-away screen cover
This is one of the more anoying things about the 5500/5600. After a bit of use, the hinge stops wear out, so the cover doesn\'t stay up. Also, I\'m always woried about it breaking.
Solution: Piel Frama or Covertech case. These cases have a flap cover, and lets you use the Zaurus while in the case.
2) Screen orientation & keyboard
The built-in keyboard is a bit better than on-screen text entry, but not good for long emails or coding sessions.
Solution: external Pocketop or Targus keyboard. Not ideal, as it\'s another item to carry around, but you can use a small camera case to carry both the Zaurus and foldable keyboard. What would be ideal is if you could get something like a Piel Frama case, with a side flap instead of top flap, and with a built-in membrane keyboard in the flap. I doubt that we\'ll see something like this though. Another idea is to velcro an external keyboard to the back of the Zaurus.
3) Limited memory
Solution: Re-compile the kernel so that you have a different memory split, leaving more available ram and less for the ramdisk. Then use a rom that lets you have /home on the SD card, and get as big of an SD as you can find. Since the SD slot is only good for memory, it\'s not too much of a bummer to have the SD slot tied up all the time for this purpose. I\'m also working on instructions to dual-boot a 5500 so you can run an alternate rom completely off the SD card. And, what I do to maximize space, is periodically I\'ll take all the binaries, and move them into a cramfs image, with symlinks pointing to them, and mounting the cramfs image on something like /mnt/cfs. This ends up saving a bunch of space (and speeds up program loading too).
The SD is slower than ram, so you\'ll also want to compile your kernel without the CONFIG_FS_SYNC flag set (this is an addition by Sharp that forces sync i/o, even if you mount your SD card with -o async). This kernel option is under the File Systems config menu, called \"Synchronous file I/O\", or something like that. Then you\'ll want the SD card mounted with \"-o async,noatime\".
4) Short battery life
Not much you can do here, except maybe keep the screen brightness down as low as is readable. This can more than double the battery life between the lowest and highest settings. Also, you can use an external battery pack, but you then have more bulk to carry. Or, if you use it in the office, keep it docked when not in use, and grab it whenever you run off to a meeting.
Also, remove CF cards when you aren\'t using them, some don\'t have a good low-power standby mode. And shop around for lower-power wireless cards, if this is your main battery drain.
5) Screen size/resolution
Ok, you\'ve got me here, this is an area where I would definately like a 6000 or cxxx model. But, for $180 for the 5500, I can\'t complain too much.
6) Speed
Again, very little you can do to improve this aspect. The only thing I can think of that the cpu speed makes a difference on is in playing movie clips. Here, just play around with compression ratios and codecs till you find one that is optimal.
