Re: SL-6000 rumour!

rhkelly wrote:

>> ...the market is full of relatively cheap, thin, attractive, 
> 
>  > ARM based colour PDAs with bluetooth/wifi. Why bother...
> 
> Linux - and mind you, I am not at all doctrinaire about it,
> I simply require the flexibility. And, as mentioned before,
> built-in keyboard which can be used 'standing up' is, for
> a given class of users, a very distinguishing caractheristic.

I agree that the keyboard is useful - my all time favourite PDA is a 
Psion 3, which is like a clamshell design... As for linux, the Zaurus 
doesn't have a monopoly on using Linux in PDAs, and linux does not have 
a monopoly on flexibility. Flexibility is there albeit at a price. You 
could get development kits for Psions, you can for WinCE, and you can 
even write Java apps to run on the latest cellphone-PDA platforms.

> I heard about Ipaqs running Linux, but would need to talk
> first-hand to someone who used it for a while to be convinced
> it is more than an interesting experiment.

I had to smile at that, I don't think running linux on an Ipaq is any 
more experimental than using a Zaurus as a PDA :) IMHO

>> ...the guts to come up with something original...
> 
> A well-supported Linux PDA is original enough. As you stated
> above, almost everything else one can think of in a PDA is
> done by many others.
> 
> It would be *so* interesting to learn what Sharp's long-range
> intentions with Zaurus line are. Yes, my 5500 with new 3.10 ROM
> gives me all I need rigt now, but I *am* of rather young age
> (and reasonably good health :).

It's an interesting time for linux on handhelds. There are some 
interesting platforms out there but no one manufacturer is standing up 
and saying 'this is a world beating solution and I'm going to market 
with it'. The reason is, the market is difficult, and right now 
cellphones are getting PDA features. So for linux to compete it would 
have to have state of the art hardware support (integrated GSM and 
wireless). Already we have the choice of cheap mass-market closed 
platforms or relatively more expensive open ones. Would you rather spend 
on an imported Zaurus or the latest from Sony-Ericsson?


-Cam