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Written by Robert Gilbert
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Friday, 27 September 2002 |
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Page 1 of 2 Well, I have spent many hours learning the Zaurus SL-5500. I must say that it is one POWERFUL animal. Here are some of my findings and also warnings.
 Specifications:
| CPU |
StrongARM SA-1110, 206MHz |
| Platform |
Linux based embedded OS (Embedix3) QT Palmtop Environment, Personal Java4 |
| Display |
Reflective TFT LCD with Front Light (touch sensitive panel supported), 3.5" with 240x320 pixel, 65,536 colors |
| Memory |
64MB SDRAM 16MB FLASH ROM |
| Input Device |
Touch Panel, QWERTY keyboard with a slide cover |
| Card Slot |
1 compact Flash Card slot,
1 SD card slot (no copyright protection feature) |
Apache, PHP, MySQL
Yesterday I installed Apache+PHP and also MySQL so I now have the Z running as a webserver (performance is good). This allows me to write quick/small scripts in PHP without worrying much about storage overheads where Java apps and Qt apps would have produce bigger apps. I am even thinking of writing my own web interface to the native Calendar and Address books and access it through its Opera browser.
I am able to store the mySQL databases on a Compact Flash card or even a SD card (secure digital) so storage is not a major problem. I strongly recommend 128 Meg cards and greater. I have not yet gotten a LAN card (wireless or regular) so I am curently using USB cradle connection.
I also have telnet enabled so I can actually telnet into my Z from my Windows machine and do my usual command-liners. For the time being I can only do this on the Windows machine that the Z is connected to (via USB) but when I get a LAN card I can do this from anywhere on my network. Maybe there is a way to do that now (I am no expert).
SD and CF cards
Now here's my warning: When I purchased my Z from amazon.com I also bought with it a 128 MB Sandisk Secure Digital (SD) card (0207LQ). Unforntunately I didn't know that there are several SD cards that are incompatible with the Zaurus. After fdisking the card several times I couldn't get it to work. The Zaurus recognized and even mounted the card but only mounted it as read-only. It was not until I came across a great site that I realized the problem. Before purchasing a SD card for your Zaurus first check the following sites to view a list of compatible/non-compatible CF/SD Memory cards: http://enrage.dhs.org/~knight/cf_sd-brand.html and http://www.zauruszone.com.
I ended up buying a 64MB Kingston CF card which works great. As a matter of fact there doesn't seem to be any major problems with CF cards.
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