Sharp SKM427F9HS 27 in Built-in Microwave Trim Kit

Pros: -Hella fast -Runs anything you throw at it -Stable -Nice keyboard design -I read in a review..."unlike some with Win CE saying that they have something like a pc in the palm of their hand, the Sharp Zaurus SL-5600 IS a PC. -Bought from Amazon and box is clearly marked PXA255. Thats an intel 400mhz process....the best in the PDA business for under $300..are you kidding me! -Will take CF I&II (which means you can buy a Creative Muvo2, rip out the microdrive and use it in this PDA...in fact Hitachi has already tested the 4gb MD with this unit). -Will take SD (yeah, it'll take both). -Memory it comes with is incredible. -Software possibilities are enormous. Cons -Screen (Poor quality) -Screen (You will see a dark spot in the top right corner since the technology used for the TFT does not fully and properly illuminate the complete screen) -Screen (did I say the screen is bad...oh yeah. -Bulky (its light, but dont plan on putting this in your pants pocket unless you have cargo pants. -Yeah - try using your stylus to close a program...for some reason it frequently takes more than 1 tap...... I'll try for a couple of weeks...if the cons outweigh the pros then its returnamundo... Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more

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. Read more