The developer edition of what will become the most advanced Linux consumer PDA to date is here; we've taken a closer look at the heart and the soul of Sharp's new SL-5000D.
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Sharp recently released the developer edition< of their new Linux-based PDA, the Zaurus SL-5000D - and the company, by positioning it as the Linux answer to Pocket PC and Palm OS devices, is trying to take the business and "prosumer" markets by storm. We take a closer look at the SL-5000D, both from the point of view of a Linux-based system and a PDA.
 | The SL-5000D is a rather large device, compared to other PDAs on the market
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Bear in mind, the software for the Zaurus SL-5000D is still in development, so it is a moving target for now. Some of the points mentioned here may change by the time the consumer version, the Sharp Zaurus SL-5500, is released in the coming months.
The hardware
The Zaurus measures 2.90 x 5.40 x 0.80 in. (74 x 138 x 21 mm), and weighs in at 7.3 oz (206 g). It's larger than typical Palm OS devices, but has a comfortable size compared to most Pocket PCs. The front panel below the screen slides down to reveal the thumb keyboard, which makes the device about 2 inches longer than when it's closed. The front panel itself has eight hardware shortcut buttons and one disk-rocker. Calendar, Contact, Home, Menu, and Email run across the top, Palm-like, with an On/Off/Cancel button and OK button flanking the silver rocker below them. The rocker itself is a 4-way disk rocker with another button in the center. The rocker feels very good in the hand and is very easy to use. Note that the front panel buttons function only when the panel is fully extended or fully retracted.
The keyboard is a QWERTY layout in a downward "frown", with a few modifications. A "FN" (function) button in the lower left acts as a shift key to the numeric and symbol characters listed above each character. The backspace key is where the Enter key normally is, while Enter is relegated to the bottom right corner. The ".", ":", ",", and ";" characters are also grouped and arranged differently. The pipe character, standard fare on any Linux-based system, is the FN-shift from the spacebar, although it is not marked as such. The keys are small, but we found them easy to use, unless you have very large fingers.
The top of the device includes a Type II Compact Flash (CF) slot, headphone/microphone jack, and silo for the included all-plastic stylus, which we found to be a bit short. An included plastic slug in the CF slot keeps it free from dirt when not in use. It works, but we prefer devices that use a small door or cover so that there is no extra plastic. On the left side of the device, there is a Secure Digital (SD) slot, which lacks a plastic slug, and an IrDA port.
The bottom end of the device includes an AC port and serial port for connecting to the included cradle. The serial port does have a fold-over door, similar to the cover on the Hewlett-Packard Jornada 540 Series CF slot. Why Sharp chose to put one of these doors on the serial port but not the CF slot eludes us. There are also two hook holes through the device, one at the top and one at the bottom, for attaching a cord so that the device can be hung around the neck. To our surprise, there is no scroll wheel to be found anywhere.
 | A top view of the SL-5000D
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The screen is a TFT color side lit display, with quarter-VGA 240x320 pixel resolution capable of displaying 65,536 colors. A frosted translucent flip cover flips down over the screen. It's clear enough that you want to try and read through it, but frosted enough that you can't. The screen is shifted several millimeters to the left, to make room for the sidelight on the right side of the screen. A large black strip down the right side of the digitizer hides the light, which provides very good visibility under most lighting conditions. Like most TFT displays, however, the Zaurus screen appears to be a magnet for dust.
Under the hood, the Zaurus is powered by a 206 MHz Intel StrongARM processor. The OS itself and the included software reside in 16 MB of Flash ROM, with 32 MB of RAM available to store and run programs. The consumer edition, the SL-5500, is expected to be identical except for having 64 MB of RAM. The Zaurus also has a DSP chip for decoding MP3s, and a tiny piezo-electric speaker for alarms.
The included docking cradle is V-shaped, with one side of the V resting on the desk and the Zaurus sliding into the other side of the V when cradled. It measures 3.4 x 2.6 x 4.2 in (HxWxD) (86 x 65 x 107 mm). A 6.5-foot (2 meter) USB cable runs out of the back to connect to a PC. The device slides into the cradle and sits on a thin port that sticks up from the base - however, it's a tight fit, so making the device connect properly can be difficult.
An included AC adapter plugs into either the base of the device or the cradle. In an amazing break with industry standard, the AC adapter does not have the AC plug built directly into it. Instead, you plug an additional cable into the adapter, which acts as an extension cord to the AC outlet. That means that the adapter will never take up more than one power socket, and why more companies don't use this design is beyond our comprehension. When the device is charging, a small gold light on the front of the device glows steady, and then shuts off when the device is fully charged.
The LiIon battery is rated at 10 days of standby time (sitting in a drawer). A memory backup battery then kicks in for an extra day to keep the memory intact, but won't turn on the screen. In our tests, with the screen dimmed and the device playing an MP3 off a CF card continuously, we were able to get 4 hours and 53 minutes of playtime before the device shut off. Recharging took approximately 3 hours. Sharp claims that the SL-5500, when it ships, will have better battery life.
 | The main Launcher screen uses a clean tabbed interface
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At the very bottom of the back is a small switch that when flipped down shuts down the device and unlocks the battery compartment. Typically you can use the switch as a "soft reset" switch by switching the device off, then back on again after a few seconds. A familiar GNU/Linux start screen appears briefly with text messages scrolling past, before the graphic libraries load. 99% of users can safely ignore that information completely, and it may be hidden on the consumer edition. You can also replace the battery while switch is down should the LiIon cells ever die.
The architecture
The Zaurus's operating system is a Linux-based OS from Lineo called "Embedix.", which bills as a "blending of Open Source and commercial software." What that means in non-market speak is that the core of the system is based on Open Source and Free Software programs, with some Free and some commercial applications running on it.
The Embedix system is built around Linux 2.4 and Qtopia (formerly Qt/Embedded) from Trolltech, in which there is no X Windows server. Qtopia is released under the GNU General Public License (GPL) rather than the GNU Lesser General Public License (LGPL), as is the SDK. You can download the SDK for free and develop apps at no charge, provide that they are then released under the GPL. If you wish to release commercial apps, you will have to license the SDK commercially from Trolltech for a one-time fee, which is expected to be between $200 and $300 USD.
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