I purchased a Zaurus hoping that it’s built-in keyboard would address my biggest PDA complaint: lousy data entry. The keyboard is a big help, but four things hold me back from heavily using my Zaurus:
- Kernel memory management isn’t optimized for PDA use.
- Poor synchronization of user data to protect against system failure or loss.
- No synchronization with Outlook Notes and no satisfactory equivalent to Pocket PC Notes application.
- No PocketBlog equivalent.
Addressing any two of these items would probably convert me into a daily Zaurus user.
1. I cannot run my Zaurus for more than a few days without a low memory dialog chastizing me to close some applications, often when I don’t have any running. When I launch the “System Info” application after such a warning, it always shows around 8MB allocated to “Cache.”
Why isn’t that memory being freed prior to the warnings? Why the heck is it using so much memory for cache in the first place? Some kernel tuning is in order here.
2. Synchronization on the Zaurus sucks. IntelliSync handles PIM data reasonably well but everything else is ignored. Last week I lost a dozen journal entries from my Zaurus. It was my own fault for causing them to be deleted, of course, but with a Palm or Pocket PC I could have recovered.
Palm syncs everything so well that you might not notice if someone stole your Palm and replaced it with an identical unit. Pocket PC sync isn’t as thorough, but I probably would have kept my journal in an application that did sync (PocketBlog or Notes).
3. The lack of a “Notepad” application that syncs with Outlook Notes is a major annoyance for me. I’ve captured a lot of knowledge using Outlook Notes, and quite a few them originated on my PDAs (some date back to my first PalmPilot). The Pocket PC’s ability to have Notes that are mixed Text and Ink, to exchange Ink with Outlook, and to perform after-the-fact handwriting recognition makes them even more useful.
4. The lack of a PocketBlog-like application is something I’m considering working on, I’ll write more about that later.
Applications in general are a mixed bag with the Zaurus. The large quantity of repackaged Linux Console and Qt apps makes the Zaurus a great portable computer, but the lack of polished Qtopia apps prevents it from being a great PDA.
