Digicam for new Sharp Linux/Java PDA

17th April - 2002
By Ian Burley

Sharp Electronics UK has formally launched the new Zaurus SL-5500 personal digital assistant (PDA) today.

High on the list of optional accessories for the new SL-5500 is a low resolution compact flash-fit digital camera (see far right).

One interesting aspect of the SL-5500 is that it sports a quarter VGA (320x240) reflective colour screen.

Sharp, which is one of the biggest developers and manufacturers of LCD screens, has combined a low light backlight mode with reflective use in bright light and our brief play with the SL-5500 confirms this works well.

The £449.99 inc.VAT SL-5500 is powered by an Intel 206MHz StrongARM processor, is fitted with 64MB of RAM and features both SD/MMC and Compact Flash memory card slots. The bottom section of the device slides down to reveal a very compact QWERTY keyboard.

Perhaps most controversial of all is that the SL-5500 isn’t compatible with either of the two leading PDA platforms, Microsoft’s Pocket PC family nor Palm OS. Instead, it uses the Linux operating system and Java applications. However, Sharp is confident that Java will prove to be a viable and formidable PDA applications platform.

www.sharp.co.uk
 

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