Zaurus expansion sleeve...

[duffman]

Does anyone have photos? I\'m curious exactly how big the Z is with the sleeve.

[palugeek]

I don\'t have any photos but I do have an expansion sleeve.  The sleeve is tapered at the top and is a little more than 1/4 inch thicker at the top than at the bottom.  At the bottom, the thinner end, it is just about the same thickness as the 6000 itself.  All the other dimensions are the same, so the bottom line is that the unit fully assembled is twice as thick.  

I like the extra functionality of the expansion but it is definitely not a \"pocket PC\" any more.

[lwong]

If you attach the sleeve,  it will block the speaker and mic, right? That\'s one of the concern I have about the sleeve because eventually I want to have a GSM module attached to the 6000 and use it as a phone.

Thanks

FW

[kenknight]

Correct me if I am wrong on this, but if I want to use CF cards in a 6000 I have to first purchase the xpansion sleeve, right? This is rather irritating to me. I realize that for the target audience that Sharp sees it\'s not really a big deal (though why they couldn\'t buld it so the machine would have its wireless connectivity and the CF slot I don\'t understand - it\'d not be that much bigger). BUt I don\'t like the notion of having to pay an extra $140 for the expansion sleeve.

Just makes me wish more they\'d sell the C-series in the States. But tht\'s life.

  ** Ken **

[duffman]

Well there\'s a CF card slot in the 6000 without the sleeve, and I am fairly certain you can toss CF cards in there. The sleeve simply adds another CF slot, and I heard that there\'s a PC/MCIA slot on a sleeve.

[lwong]

Doesn;t the expansion sleeve have an extra CF slot instead of PCMCIA? It will be so much better if it is PCMCIA but as far as I remember it\'s jsut another CF.

FW

[duffman]

Doesn;t the expansion sleeve have an extra CF slot instead of PCMCIA? It will be so much better if it is PCMCIA but as far as I remember it\'s jsut another CF.

FW

Currently yes, they only offer the CF slot one, but I believe I\'ve heard that there is a PCMCIA one in the works.

[lwong]

Hmm... I guess I will have to wait a bit longer then....

FW

[DrWowe]

Is it possible to get a pinout for the expansion connector?

[palugeek]

One thing you mustn\'t overlook, the sleeve does come with an extra battery in addition to the CF slot.

[coolass]

lwong , if you use a GSM/GPRS card they come with a headphone/mic jack on them for cellphone use.

[lwong]

coolass,

You are completely correct. But after using a bluetooth headset with my current phone(w/o wires), I don\'t know if I can get used to using regular hands-free set anymore. At first I thought holding your PDA to your face to answer the phone is strange but after seeing some of my co-workers do it with their PPC phones, it looks less strange nowadays.

Now if someone can make the GSM module use the bluetooth card to talk to a bluetooth handsfree.......

fw

[DrWowe]

Is it possible to get a pinout for the expansion connector?

coolass, (or anyone else with enterprise connections at Sharp), is it possible to get this info?  Doesn\'t seem like it should be a big secret...

[coolass]

DrWowe ,I\'ll find out for you and also there is always the PCMCI to CF adaptor. lwong there are a few wireless headsets that use RF signals to transmit. I use one myself and can get a range of about 10 meters with walls.It\'s 2.4ghz and doesn\'t interfere with wifi.

[lwong]

Coolass, aren\'t you refering to Bluetooth? 2.4GHz RF with max range of 10m seems to describe bluetooth prefectly.

I have search for existing CF GSM/GPRS but all requires you to use the WIRED handfree set they supply. I hope this will change as they introduce newer sets.

But either way a expansion sleeve w/ PCMCIA slot is welcomed. A Toshiba 5GB PCMCIA HDD cost aroud $170 while a CF counterpart will cost many times over.

FW