I love it. At conferences last year, I was using my iPaq 3650 running familiar linux, bash, and ssh, a Stowaway keyboard, and a Lucent WaveLAN Gold card with a slim 802.11b external antenna as a replacement for my 8lb notebook. The added mobility was wonderful, and it was a real eye-catcher for folks.

The drawback is that it's very kludgy and carrying it still requires large pockets or a small bag. Setting it up is a bit like assembling a free-standing work of art on-the-fly.


The Zaurus is a streamlined, integrated version of all of this for me. The keyboard mechanism is beautifully-engineered, and strongly resembles the keyboard on the larger BlackBerry (a device I used for about a year, and came to love the keyboard on). I can type very quickly using just my two thumbs, and it feels very natural. When not in use, the sliding mechanism hides it perfectly, and the entire mechanism feels very solid and professional.

The CF and SD slots mean I can use a CF formfactor 802.11b card (I've got a Socket CF card right now, but I'm still working on getting an LKM to support it. They're using a MAC chip that I can't get data on, so I can't finish hacking the spectrum24t KLM to work with it), and use the SD slot for storage expansion.

It comes with bash and vi, which makes me happy. I've got ssh running on it, and Opera's built in. QTe seems very professional, and the licensing doesn't bother me as much as it does some purists I know. As such, it's perfectly suited to this type of device.

The screen is exactly the same as the one used in the iPaq, and is correctly sealed, eliminating the iPaq problem with dust under the screen layers. This makes for a beautiful display.

The only real complaint I could muster right now is the lack of anything beyong simple chirps and beeps for sound reproduction. However, it does have a headphone jack and can feed full sound through those, so it's really not an issue for me. Besides, I use a dedicated portable MP3 player for music (Rio 800 Extreme).

The only functional difference for the way I'm using the devices between this and the iPaq for me is the lack of a PCMCIA slot on the Zaurus (I use a 2GB PCMCIA hard drive on the iPaq for various things, using the dual PCMCIA sleeve so I can also use an 802.11b card). However, the Zaurus more than makes up for it in elegance and functionality.

Now, if I could just find a CF 802.11b card with a jack for an external antenna, I'd be in heaven. I may have to hack one into an existing card, tho.

If you've got to have one now, you won't be disappointed. However, the final consumer release (sometime in April, I believe) will have 64MB RAM; the currently available developer's model only has 32MB RAM.