Digital Trends

Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000

May 25th, 2005 | by Victor Chen

Performance

Booting up the Zaurus SL-C3000 takes about 1.5 minutes which is sort of long. However, in my experience, you will rarely ever have to completely restart the operating system. It's Linux after all. Once loaded, the system is relatively quick. Some applications take a few seconds to load since they must load off the hard disk but once in memory, it's easy to switch between the applications quickly. The applications themselves are pretty snappy themselves and respond as you would expect.

The battery life of the Zaurus is pretty impressive. Although I didn't have time to run exhaustive tests, I never had to worry about the battery. The SL-C3000 was able to play a couple GBs worth of MP3s on shuffle/repeat for nearly 12 hours with 25% battery life to spare. One thing to note is that the battery meter isn't entirely informative. The battery status is either Good or Low. There is a visual cue from the graphic of the battery but it would be nice if it could give you an estimated time remaining like most modern PDAs and laptops.

Also, the battery retains power pretty well even if not used for a period of time. While reviewing the unit, I had to take an unexpected business trip. When I returned nearly a week later, the unit was almost exactly as I left it (uncharged) and I was able to immediately use the device.

Conclusion

The lack of built-in Wi-Fi or even Bluetooth seems to be a glaring omission; however, if we remember which market this device is for it certainly makes a lot of sense since Japan uses other wireless data services. The bring-your-own-wireless option allows Sharp to give their customers more flexibility depending on their needs.

To be fair, the Zaurus SL-C3000 is more than a PDA, it's essentially a full blown computer depending on your point of view and should definitely appeal to Linux fans and advanced users looking for a more powerful and extensible PDA. First time PDA users may be better served with a Palm or Windows-based PDA since this device will be more than they'll ever need. That said, the device is pricey compared to other PDAs but it offers so much more potential than other PDAs because of its extensibility and its ability to serve as one's primary mobile solution. For the average user the Zaurus SL-C300 would rate more along a 7/10, but for those of you who are used to import products or are a Linuz power user, the SL-C3000 would rank around an 8 or higher.

For more information about the Zaurus and purchase options, visit Dynamism and if you're looking for a great resource for the Zaurus line of products then you'll want to visit the Zaurus Users Group.

Pros:

-          A very versatile device

-          Well built and very stylish

-          Good battery life

-          Built on the Linux operating system

-          Supports various memory cards

Cons:

-          Lacks integrated WiFi or Bluetooth

-          Can be difficult to setup with Microsoft Outlook

-          Inaccurate battery meter