Rating: 
Summary: Great PDA
Review: I've been looking for a replacement for my Visor Platinum for a while now, and this one caught my eye. Aside from the fact that this model carries a faster processor and a longer lasting battery compared to the 5500, the size of the unit "may" look identical from the face, but the extended battery comes with a small price. The back of the unit sticks out slightly to accomodate for the larger battery. It's still one of the most feature rich PDA's out there with a pretty impressive onboard speaker and microphone. Transferring files to the CF or SD memory cards is pretty "clunky" so purchasing a 6-in-1 type reader is the best way to go if you want to transfer larger files. The box itself includes the Zaurus + a removable clear flip top similar to the old Palm III, a usb sync cradle, a laptop style ac adapter which can be used independantly of the cradle, a stylus, sync software, and manuals.
Rating:
Summary: Very, very cool! A PDA for UNIX geeks
Review: I've been using Palm PDAs for about five years now and wanted to upgrade to something new. I had seen the Zaurus 5500 and was going to purchase one before I heard that the 5600 was being released. The 5600 is fast, applications load quickly and the OS seems to be very stable. I haven't had anything crash yet. Setting up wireless networking with a CF card is trivial, plug the card in, run the network config application and type in your WEP key and you're on the net. Surfing with Opera is excellent, you can zoom in and out on web pages and I haven't found any pages that it won't display. I have yet to try the Hancom applications for reading and writing Word and Excel docs but everything else works very well. Now I just need to find an SSH client for it and I'll really be in business.
Rating:
Summary: Best PDA I've used
Review: I've tried a couple Palms, tried an HP Jornada 548 for a bit, but nothing gives you the ease of use, power, and selection of good powerful software like the Zaurus (in my opinion). I just got my wireless CF card for it, and it integrated flawlessly into my wireless network, pop email works great, and browsing pages couldn't be easier with the packaged Opera client. Also, a big plus is that you can even install alternate operating systems on it, since it's open source!!! I highly recommend it!
Rating:
Summary: Awesome -- Unix in your palm.
Review: Let me preface this review by stating that I am a long time Unix user/developer and navigating Unix-based OS's is second nature to me.I finally caved-in and purchased the Zaurus 5600 after Amazon lowered the price. When I finally received the item, I was disappointed to find that unit had the PX250 processor (you can definitively determine your processor type by entering the following command from your terminal application: grep Processor /proc/cpuinfo). Nevertheless, I forged ahead and installed the WCF12 LAN card, rebooted the handheld and I was up and surfing the net and reading reviews for the 5600 on Amazon.com (I have a Netgear MR-814 wireless router)! I downloaded the Konsole application and I was exploring the filesystem using the default bash shell commands. Out of the box, the 5600 does not support X applications. No problem! I downloaded and installed Qtopia-X, Keypebble, IceWM, and XFree86. I started up QTopia-X (which is a VNCServer), started up the window-manager, set the display to the localhost on VNC server and fired up Xterm. Way too cool!! I am looking forward to installing gcc/g++ after I add a SD card to the unit. I am completely blown away that I have fully functioning Unix/X station on the little 5600. For the more Windows oriented users, I successfully used Hancom sheet to open an Excel spreadsheet, Hancom Word to open a MSWord document and was able to sync with Outlook with no problems. The keyboard is very usable (vi users, the cancel button is the ESC key and Unix users, pipe is shift-space) and the overall design of the PDA is fantastic and well thought out. There has been no noticable lapse in performance due to the PX250 processor. I am normally loathe to use a plethora of exclamation points in my writing, but the presence of them in this review is an indication of my affection for the "Little Unix Box(!!!!)."
Rating:
Summary: excellent product
Review: Linux OS and the keyboard are the best features of this PDA. The keyboard beats any software input methods by a mile. The Linux OS provides stability and easy commuication with the linux desktops I have. The netgear ma701 wi-fi card simply works after plugging in and the configuration for connecting to my wi-fi access point is straightforward; after installing the free qpe-terminal and openssh packages, I can easily access the PDA from my desktop. The battery life is great without the wi-fi card (I guess I should have bought a low-power card).
Rating: 
Summary: Beware
Review: Linux PDA!! Sounds cool, does n't it. Well, only till you
buy the junk and bring it home to realize no drivers are
available for any of the add-ons. I bought this SL-5600,
along with a Socket WLAN card (which was addvertised at Sharp's
website). I bought an infrared keyboard as well. None of them
work with the PDA. Sharp's site has no support for the WLAN
card or the keyboard and Socket's website says they have drivers
for every other PDA except Zaurus SL-5600. Same for the infrared
keyboard. Not to mention that all the cool things like c compiler
etc are not available for this version (they are available for
SL-5500). Bummer! I bought this about 5 months back. I guess sometimes later, some
one will write the drivers for Zaurus SL-5600. But until then,
check the availability of drivers for whatever you want to add
on before you buy the PDA otherwise it will just gather dust.
BTW sharp's web site says downloads for SL-5600 coming soon.
Its been saying that for the past 5 months.
To me the only attractive thing about this PDA was that I could
program on it. If you want to use the PDA just as a personal
assistant, there are much better alternatives than this one.
Rating:
Summary: Ok this one is good
Review: Much better then 5500 model!
Rating:
Summary: This PDA is for anyone, not just us geeks
Review: My first PDA was the Zaurus 5000D (developer version of this 5600). I really wanted to like it but it was limited on space for installing apps and I had trouble synching it with my Outlook. But enter the 5600... as soon as I heard it announced I had my eye on it and finally broke down and bought it. What a dream! Straight out of the box I plugged in my Linksys CF WAN card and in no time I was connected to my wireless network and surfing the net with the pre-installed Opera browser. I even checked and sent email. For about $ I was able to enter complete geek-dom and downloaded tkcJabber, an instant messenger package that connects to AIM, MSN, IRC and Yahoo chats. (this and many free software for the Zaurus are available at [website].) And within minutes I was chatting online as well. The true test was then the synching feature. I installed the Intellisync software on my machine from the CD that came with my Zaurus, plugged in the docking station, put my Zaurus on there and hit the synch button. It all Synched without one problem! What a breeze! The battery life on the 5600 is much improved over the 5000D and the 5500. Other things I love about the Zaurus: I can read and edit Word and Excel documents on it; can view PowerPoint presentations; the sliding QWERTY keyboard is convenient and, although it looks small and hard to use, it really is quite handy and easy to use. I also like the fact that you can use a compactflash card (CF) and/or a SecureDigital (SD) card. I could list more but I think my word limit is about up for this review! Bottomline: Highly recommend!
Rating:
Summary: Very nice PDA
Review: Picked up my Zaurus last week. So far so good. I believe most of the 5600 have the PXA250 with the cache bug in it. The PXA255 fixes the issue and has been reported seen in some Zaurus 5600 but not all. The one I received is an older one based ont the information I found in the /proc/cpuinfo file on the device. B2 stepping which was available up until around March of 2003 - about the time these went out the door probably. While the speed is not intolerable, the idea that it can be faster makes you want it to scream along. There are patches that with good instructions available that can increase the speed should you take the time to research it. The main thing that I like with the Zaurus is the flexibility - Its linux - add what apps work for you, ditch the rest. Your not stuck with some inferior thing because its part of the system. As a side note, installing additional apps is quite easy - I used the provided ftp program and dropped on a new package...
Rating:
Summary: Very nice PDA
Review: Picked up my Zaurus last week. So far so good. I believe most of the 5600 have the PXA250 with the cache bug in it. The PXA255 fixes the issue and has been reported seen in some Zaurus 5600 but not all. The one I received is an older one based ont the information I found in the /proc/cpuinfo file on the device. B2 stepping which was available up until around March of 2003 - about the time these went out the door probably. While the speed is not intolerable, the idea that it can be faster makes you want it to scream along. There are patches that with good instructions available that can increase the speed should you take the time to research it. The main thing that I like with the Zaurus is the flexibility - Its linux - add what apps work for you, ditch the rest. Your not stuck with some inferior thing because its part of the system. As a side note, installing additional apps is quite easy - I used the provided ftp program and dropped on a new package...
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