Digital Trends

Sharp Zaurus SL-C3000

May 25th, 2005 | by Victor Chen

Design and Features

When first handling the Zaurus, you will find that it exudes quality craftsmanship. It's extremely well built and has all the nice touches you would expect from a high-end product. Compared to contemporary PDAs, it has a bit of heft, but it feels very solid for such a compact device. It's certainly not heavy and it doesn't feel cheap. The larger design makes it easy to handle and makes the keyboard surprisingly easy to use. To give you an idea about the size, here's the Zaurus SL-C3000 next to Sony's similarly designed Clie convertible PDA.

The white finish with silver and chrome accents will likely draw iPod-esque comparisons but the device is beautiful on its own merits. Buttons, ports, and connectors are discretely labeled as to not detract from the device itself. The stylus tucks neatly beneath the device when not in use.

As you can see, it's also noticeably bigger but then again, this isn't your regular PDA.

The Zaurus SL-C3000 has a wide variety of expansion and connectivity options due to the fact that it has both SD (Secure Digital) and CF (Compact Flash) expansion slots. Additionally, both are I/O capable allowing you to use any compatible wireless adapter. This includes Wi-Fi cards, Bluetooth cards, or other types of wireless cards like the ones found in Japan. The SL-C3000 comes with SD and CF slot filler pieces to keep debris from getting inside the slots. The SL-C3000 also has a standard mini-USB port and an IR port for added connectivity options. The mini-USB port is a nice touch since it means you only need a very common mini-USB cable instead of a proprietary cable or docking unit for connectivity.

The 3.7” VGA (640x480) screen is extremely bright and razor sharp. The large screen is very easy to read in most lighting conditions except for direct sunlight. You may have some glare issues but it's definitely not the worst experience. By default, the system will default to a less bright setting when in battery mode but you can change that setting in the preferences if you don't like the default settings.

The clamshell convertible design allows you to operate the device horizontally like a mini-laptop or vertically in a more traditional PDA form factor. When converting the screen, the OS will automatically flip the orientation of the screen to match the mode you're in. In most cases, all open applications will also change their orientation to match the configuration.