Wow, thanks Jeff for reviewing the Zaurus C700 and introducing it to the greater tech community!

I just received my Japanese unit and I liked it so much that I just have to tell everyone this – To everyone who is sitting on the fence like I was, this PDA is truly excellent and I believe it is ready for prime time!

I believe that the C700 community has reached critical mass and that we now have enough knowledge to convert this unit to English and customize it to make it useful – even for Linux newbies like myself.

If you are full of questions like I was – check out my C700 page for newbies and judge for yourself. I welcome your comments!
http://members.rogers.com/e46m3/zaurus/

Jeff

Originally posted by Dexteron
[B]What is the full list of connectors on the C700?
So far I see it has CF, SD, IRDA, and some sort of serial interface. Is the CF type II? (You never know until you know). [/B]

Yes, the CF slot is type II, and a Microdrive works fine in it.

There’s also a stereo heaphone connector (which can be switched to mono earplug/mono microphone mode in software), and a proprietary plug format for the USB (device, not host) and serial cables.

-Klaus

Jeff

Originally posted by LordDavon
[B]Thanks for pointing out the forum. Unfortunatly, it has the same misunderstanding that many people have. The units that Dynamism sells do not have an English ROM. The units are converted by making changes to the writable filesystem and the ROM is the same as shipped from Sharp. This makes it possible to update the ROM using Sharp’s Japanese ROM without affecting the translation.

LD [/B]

Does this mean that if I buy a translated one, and sharp decides to release an english version, that I can update to a native english one? (Or does it mean that I can’t)

There’s lots of SL-5500 software available at myzaurus.com, more every day.

I think you’d get more out of your Zaurus if you use the (fairly) good documentation that comes with the SL-5500 model. They sound similar enough. The documentation that came with the Z is on line:

Word and Excel (1 MB size):
http://www.myzaurus.com/downloads/HancomMobileOffice.pdf

General User Guide 6.5 MB size:
http://www.myzaurus.com/downloads/Final_OM.pdf

Questions:
What the schedule for Dynamism to improve their English support?
Will you update the review when you get the English instructions and find out about all the other nifty features?
Is Sharp gonna release a real English version in the US?

Originally posted by Mike Pendray
[B]Does the Word handling program cope with tables?
Is there a hotsynch program? Which interface does it use?

Best Wishes
Mike [/B]

Yes, tables seem to make it over to HancomWord from my
desktop Windows Word.

Jeff

Originally posted by jmoses
[B]Excellent review. I’ve been drooling for one of these since I found out about them.

One feature you didn’t address was how the swivel for the screen feels. Does it feel like it’s going to snap off, or does it feel pretty solid? I’ve held of on getting one since I tend to be pretty hard on mobile devices.

Thanks,
-Jon [/B]

It is okay, but you have to be sure not to try to turn it the wrong way! It goes clockwise, and feels like you could do some damage if you try to turn it counterclockwise too energetically. There is a sticker in Japanese on it warning you of the right way to turn it, so I guess they know it might be tempting to make a mistake.

Jeff

i don’t use the usb cable to windows as i don’t have windows. i was yet dumb enough to go wireless and started samba to move files over to it from nautilus (smb://ip-address).

my future plan is to setup sudo and have an icon just to click to start samba – when the network dies, so does samba apparently.

i don’t plan to buy any software for it so for playlists, maybe i’ll find a playlist editor which just modifies the playlist in media-player and that will work for me.

note: you can get sound from the internal speaker – it just isn’t great sound – for great sound plugin an external speaker.

One feature you didn’t address was how the swivel for the screen feels. Does it feel like it’s going to snap off, or does it feel pretty solid? I’ve held of on getting one since I tend to be pretty hard on mobile devices.

Thanks,
-Jon

LD

That would be expected as the fonts these applications use are designed for a 320×240 display. I have been working on making the fonts larger, but this is taking some time. I have also been working with OpenZaurus and there will be a version of Opie for the C700 which will also sync with Qtopia Desktop out soon.

This is the preferred conversion method and the route that we have decided to take as opposed to releasing the conversion.

LD

Originally posted by LordDavon
[B]Jeff,

Holding your stylus down on the applications icon will allow you to disable the mirror mode (320×240 mode). This will allow many of the applications to run in the “landscape” mode. This is not an option for the included applications since their options are hidden by a line that is added to their .desktop file.

LD [/B]

Thanks for this tip. It works, but unfortunately 1) some apps then
run in a 1/3 screen box in landscape mode, and 2) those
that run full-screen, like the tkc Contacts program, end up with
micro-tiny fonts; even increasing the font size to maximum on
tkc Contacts leaves it just a bit too small to be useful. I have
read on a new C700 forum (http://externe.net/zaurus/forum/)
that you can edit the resolution: it involves starting up via a
command line in Embedded Console, and editing. I have not tried
this, it sound a bit complicated.

Jeff

I’m now running Debian Linux on mine (see my homepage for details; the screenshots still show the older 5000 model), and it’s surprisingly well useable as a miniature Linux workstation. The keyboard is great, the extra Japanese keys are positioned just right to be used as Ctrl and Alt keys, and the 640×480 display has no trouble displaying 80×25 characters in a well-readable font.

I’m not too thrilled with the qtopia applications delivered with the system – they are rather slow and bloated IMHO. I’m currently using jpilot for PIM tasks under X11 – it’s not pretty, but at least it has a month view that actually displays the appointment details for each day. And you can dial numbers on your cellphone via IRDA directly from the contacts view.

I haven’t really had any trouble with the battery life so far – note that its charger and batteries are compatible with the older Sharp Zaurus 5×00 series, so I plundered my old Zaurus to get a spare battery, which I haven’t actually needed yet. Wireless LAN eats power like crazy, but you can usually plug in the (tiny) charger at airports or other hot spots.

It would be nice if Sharp released a 64MB RAM version – the 32MB model can run out of memory if you try to run larger applications. But it’s been working quite well so far.

-Klaus

Holding your stylus down on the applications icon will allow you to disable the mirror mode (320×240 mode). This will allow many of the applications to run in the “landscape” mode. This is not an option for the included applications since their options are hidden by a line that is added to their .desktop file.

LD

One or two programs would not work, but I’m not sure why.
There was nothing I absolutely needed, and I haven’t had a
chance to fool around with getting non-essential stuff to run
until I get everything else up. It looks to me like movies may
have to be converted to 320 rather than 640 to run with the
tkc viewer, but I haven’t had enough time to check that out.

Otherwise, no problem with the resolution that I can see, except
that most of the programs do not have an option to use the
landscape view. Some will not install to the SD card but require
you to install to internal storage, but most do fine from the SD
(or, I guess, Compact flash). I will probably save the compact
flash slot for wi-fi or other comm stuff, Dynamism says that 1 Gig
SD will be available later this year. Since the 1 hour John Wayne
oater I found on the net takes roughly 92 Meg, and I have about
100 Meg of book files, spreadsheets and software, a 1 Gig
card should hold all my stuff and plenty of movies.

Jeff

Have you found that the Zaurus apps for the 5500 work on this PDA, or is the resolution too confusing for them?

“The Sharp VGA (640×480) screen is truly awesome: bright and razor sharp. In fact, sometimes it’s so detailed it can be difficult to read the text; fortunately, there’s a built-in zoom function that allows you to zoom up on the screen in five steps. ”

I will check out the tables in HancomWord and let you know, the
comm programs will have to wait on more exploration and an
English manual. Certain Compact Flash cards that work on the
Zaurus 5500 are supposed to work on the C700, but I’m not
going to buy anything until I have pretty reliable reports AND a
set of user instructions I’m sure I understand.

The PIMs and English conversion are acceptable. I mentioned
that I replaced the Contacts book with the tkc program,
because the conversion was not great (kept trying to switch
to Japanese font), perhaps this has been corrected over the
past two weeks. The tkc contacts book is written for the
5500 and does not rotate to landscape aspect, this is not
optimal but if the C700 catches on here I’d expect to see a
fix for this.

The Nexio looks also very interesting, but it is a good deal bigger
than the C700.

QT format Linux programs should run, but I think I want to try
‘em out one by one until I become a Linux guru. The tkc people
seemed amazed that some of their stuff was running on the
C700.

Jeff

I would like to hear your impressions of the PIM apps and the conversion to english by Dynamism.

I have serious techno-lust for the C700 but it is missing a few things for me (besides not being sold in the US).

What I would like to see is:

128Meg RAM
802.11b
8 Hour battery life
$400-$500 price

I’ve stated this in other places but I think Sharp is missing a huge opportunity with the C700. They need to really support and seed the developer community. They also need to release this in the states soon.

Here are a few questions that come to mind from the C700 review:-
What is the screen resolution?
Does the Word handling program cope with tables?
Is there a hotsynch program? Which interface does it use?
Does your replacement contacts program synchronise with outlook?
does the application or the OS control the screen aspect (portrait or landscape)?

Have you seen anything of the Samsung Nexio? http://www.samsungelectronics.com/pda/index.html
Pocket PC 8.8oz 800×480 screen and keyboard

Best Wishes
Mike

PS. nice review:
uhm..can you run all Linux software written with QT in mind? what is the situation with softwares? thanks.