Rating: 
Summary: You'd be dumb to turn this away!
Review: A great product...Sharp knew what they were doing. I'm a hardcore linux geek. I only use Gentoo linux and found this thing to be great. I just got it, and was impressed right away. It is sleek, and elegant. The colors were simply outstanding, it was miraculous. I love how the keyboard is there but doesn't cramp the screen, or prevent button use. It makes typing easier. With the IR port I can use a real keyboard in addition to handwriting, and QWERTY. I think I'm low on space here so in conclusion...buy it and don't look back!
Rating: 
Summary: rgbman
Review: After searching far and wide for a TRUE handheld PC, I finally found it in the Zaurus 5600. With the recent price reduction I thought I'd give it a try. I am so glad I did! In the past week it has done all that I've asked it to, web surfing, email, calendar, task management, games (ultima7 via exult) and even network troubleshooting. I was able to troubleshoot and reconfigure a client wireless IP network (two AP's, repeater, and one firewall) all from the little Z. Doesn't sound like much, but in the past my ipaq couldn't keep up, frequently stumbling when loosing signal or releasing a DHCP address (softreset needed.) The Z had no problems and quickly stood out as a tool, not a toy. Laptop stayed in bag :)This thing is a sleeper hit. If you are a moderate linux person or wanting to learn, and are seeking a truely capable handheld, give the Z a try. Although I say moderate linux person, you don't need to know linux, but will need a solid understanding of handhelds, PC's and the sync process as this is a rough spot for the Z. It will sync ith outlook and it's own desktop (like palm desktop), but getting things going first time can be rough for the newbie. If you know what you're doing, however, syncing can be done via CF, SD, USB, Serial, or even network. I bought the Zaurus SL-5600 to replace my ipaq 5455, which was complete garbage in comparision. The Z is simply the best handheld tool and it being linux based is part of that success.. IMHO.
Rating:
Summary: Every Promise Fullfilled
Review: Everything that Sharp announced is as I imagined while reading. The SL 5600 is an outstanding product. Wish it also had a strong and rough case, leather or plastic. Hector
Rating:
Summary: Great for Linux Users
Review: For the Linux junkie, the 5600 is a "must-have". I mean how cool is it to run a website from your pocket! If you feel pretty comfortable with Linux/Unix, then you will love it. Add on a wireless CF card and you can surf wirelessly and connect to wireless hotspots. The Personal Information Manager (PIM) definitely isn't as mature as PalmOS and it can show at times in terms of the features and usability of the grahical interface. There are also the standard issues that go along with installing software packages on linux. For the person who just wants a PDA that you can keep phone numbers in and play the latest version of foo-bar-tastic Mega-Brickout2004 on, go with a Palm or Windows based PDA. If you are comfortable with linux, then this is your product. It is essentially a mini-desktop computer that can run Apache, OpenSSH, FTPd, etc and at the time I'm writing this it's the fastest PDA in terms of CPU speed. The internal ROM is a little small, so you may want to look into adding a SD card for additional storage. But to be honest, I love mine.
Rating: 
Summary: Not worth the trouble
Review: Hardware: This thing is bulkier and has a smaller screen than comparable products. The thumb keyboard is comfortable and surprsingly fast but is of questionable utility as an integrated feature. Mine had a defective battery and frequently needed hard resets, returning it to its factory state and wiping the internal memory (which had everything I downloaded for it). Sharp directed me to the retailer and the retailer directed me to Sharp. Rinse, repeat. Then call your credit card... Software: OS
The directory structures are ridiculously deep and don't intuitively correspond to the folders in the windowing system. It doesn't come with any reasonable tool for browsing your directory tree either - you will have to buy or download one. Hancom suite
This is a pathetic attempt to allow some MS office compatibility. It is useless for any powerpoint presentation over about 1MB, with fonts under about 28 pt, or with any graphics, and it throws away half your screen real estate by not rotating the display for slideshows. The Outlook app will really, really screw up your calendar, meetings, and contacts if you dare import anything back to a PC that you modified on the Zaurus - for example, it will make all recurring appointments into individual ones, meaning you must keep deleting them until infinity if it changes, or it will want to duplicate all of your contacts with new screwed-up, truncated copies. Linux is one of the only reasons to buy this device. There is a nice base of avid users, and you will be able to find a ton of free applications for this device. I am confident there will be a support base of hackers for the Zaurus for a long time. If you don't tinker with programming enough to appreciate the open OS or aren't a pathological Windows basher, I think you will be dissappointed.
Rating:
Summary: Very friendly user
Review: I am in love with my Zaurus. I have never owned a PDA before and was scared I couldn't figure out how to use it. Well, I was pleasantly surprised. It has been very easy to use and no problems communicating with mircosoft on my computer. I have been typing files in Hamcon Word and then transfering to my computer. It works like a charm. The screen it bright and clear. I downloaded some games from the internet and now I am entertained on the train into NYC. I have not tried the internet card or the media player (future adventures). After much investigation into the Zaurus (compared to sony), I am happy with my decision.
Rating:
Summary: The Zaurus shows the power of Open Source
Review: I have had the Zaurus for 2 days. This device is simply amazing. Just a few things to mention
1) WI-FI support, I just plugin my Linksys wireless CF card, and it worked, on Pocket PC, I had to install software.
2) The wirelsss connection and the browser work great. On Pocket PC, the buggy MS software frequently quit working for no reason, and I had to reset the Pocket PC unit. The Linux based Zaurus is rock soild.
3) The USB syncing is reliable. The Pocket PC won't even work via the USB hub, you have to connect it directly to a USB port. Furthermore, activesync frequently stops working, and I had to reboot both the PC and PDA. Now let me tell you something I have done:
1) installed OpenSSH onto the unit. After that, I leave the unit downstairs, upstairs using a notebook I wirelessly sshed into the PDA, it's just another UNIX server, at the bash promopt, I use wget to download a bunch of files from the net, including PERL, APACHE, and MYSQL. MySQL is only a few hundred kilio bytes, I created a few tables and run some SQL queries. Great!
2) Installed a VNC server on the PDA, then on my PC I use vncviewer to connect to the PDA, the PDA screen shows up on the PC, and I can remotely operate it via its GUI interface. On the net, I found all sorts of applications ported to Zaurus, even including things like XFfree86 and Courier-mail server. Maybe we should do some web and mail benchmarking on this 400MHZ device. In conclusion, this PDA is a true Linux machine with a small keyboard and screen that can be put in your pocket, you can use it to listen to mp3, browser web or serve web and email.....or whatever open source.
Rating:
Summary: Best in class for my needs.
Review: I have used practically every version of the iPaq, and each one has let me down with the usual Microsoft "features"/frustrations . The Zaurus is fast enough, and has all the utilities and apps I need to stay organized, play MP3's, video, store password and account information, create documents and spreadsheets, etc. If you feel you need toys and colorful utilities on your PDA, then you probably need to stay with the Windows CE versions...and back it up often, but for me the Zaurus does it all. I have owned the SL550 (which met with a traumatic demise on a family vacation), and now own the SL5600. The Zaurus is stable, full featured and does not require you to spend extra $$ on a keyboard. Good battery life too. In my opinion, it is the biggest bang for the buck for its indended use as a PDA. Besides, what other PDA can you compile code on and write your own apps if so inclined, as easily as Linux and the Zaurus?
Rating:
Summary: A real good start but...
Review: I saw a friend's Zaurus SL-5500 and thought it was awesome, so I decided to try out the SL-5600. I have had it for about 6 months now and have had some time to fool around with it. I love the quality of the graphics, and the games are great. Figuring out how to get documents into and out of it can be a little tricky, especially for someone like me that has never owned a PDA before and is only slightly computer literate. I am sure it can do a lot more than I have managed to figure out. My biggest dissapointment is the assistance that I have gotten with it. My installation CD met an unfortunate demise, and now getting the replacement downloads is pretty much impossible. I have called Sharp, one of the registered maintance centers, checked the internet, and talked to people at Best Buy... noone has been able to help me or even give me any advice. The download for the Installation CD on the Sharp web page is for the SL-5500 and won't work. The drivers for this model are nowhere to be found. It is really exasperating! I hope they find a way to fix this soon.
Rating: 
Summary: defect not disclosed
Review: I was outraged when I recieved my zaurus sl-5600 that I bought NEW from amazon at $289 when I discovered there is a KNOWN BUG in the 250 chip it was shipped with that has even been discontinued. The defect causes the processor to run at a fraction of it's intended speed. When I called Sharp to ask about this bug I was asked what chip my Z had in it and I told them I was then put on hold for a long time and told "Sharp is currently unaware of the presence of and defect in your model". The saving factor is that there is a third party patch available you can apply to the kernel which will double the speed of the processor. Know that you are getting what you pay for!!!!! If you want a Z without a defective chip be sure to buy one with a 255 chip. I will never buy another product from Sharp or Amazon ever again. I find such a way of doing bussiness to be immoral and unethical. I sugest you do the same.
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