I've also waited for this device for ages, it's almost miraculous.

Sure the keyboard sucks big time, especially compared with the 3200, that's my biggest gripe about the N900.

But, otherwise, it's an incredible GNU successor, I'm in love with this GNU device.

Originally had a 3100, then 3200, then those went to sleep, and I switched to the HTC Universal running Debian, now this was an awesome keyboard, but the device slow as hell. And now the evolution has put to sleep the Uni and here is the N900...

OK, let me write something about my Zaurus history then.

First I had Palm m105, then Sony Clie SJ30 but I wanted hackable device so sold SJ30 and bought Zaurus SL-5500. Then I joined OpenEmbedded team, created working images for that device and became one of OpenZaurus hackers. Last releases of OZ were maintained by me btw.

During first year of my Zaurus experienceI got c760 donated [1] by one of OZ users. During next 2-3 years I had SL-5600 [2], SL-6000L [2], SL-C3000 which were donated by users to our team. We used those devices to get our distribution fly. Now I have only c760 which gather dust in a drawer, rest of Zaurii are in hands of OpenEmbedded/Ångström developers [3]. We run 2.6 kernels on all of them.

During 2007 FOSDEM I got Nokia 770 from one of Nokia developers [4]. Played a bit with it but preferred c760 anyway (due to keyboard and openness). In 2008 I bought N810 [5] but did not used it as a PIM because I stopped using any PDA for PIM stuff as my phone (SE k750i) was good at it. Now for PIM I use Nokia E66 phone.

I also have two Openmoko Neo1973 devices which I got for free from them [6]. Used them only during development and then put them in drawer. Recently one of them got use as one of Polish SHR developers took it from me for some testing.

Will N900 be good hacking device for me? I hope that it will - otherwise I just wasted 250€ on DDP.

1. http://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/200...ill-have-c760/
2. http://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/200...vices-arrived/
3. http://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/200...r-have-collie/
4. http://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/200...5/fosdem-2007/
5. http://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/200...th-nokia-n810/
6. http://marcin.juszkiewicz.com.pl/200...o1973-arrived/

I had an SL-5500 for a year or two. Sold it many years ago.

Yes, I also had a Zaurus before (C760). But it was already a replacement device for the several Psions (Series5) I had even before that.

The clamshell format and keyboard of the Psion S5 have never been bested, or even matched, after all these years. In that respect, the Zaurii were average at best.

The 770 and N800 were my first non-keyboard PDAs, and served to wean me off the habit. With the N810 and N900, it's on to "sliders" now...

I think this is just a myth. I had a Series5 Psion, and the keyboard was definitely not better than the 760's or 3200's, which I've had.

And its clamshell format and keyboard came nowhere near close to the HTC Universal's, that keyboard has so far been unmatched by any phone.

Though comparing with the N900, the Psion was way better in terms of keyboard, but hey, that was no GNU mobile, it's not even in the same category... (I know you weren't talking about that )...

I loved my SL-C3100 running OpenBSD-current.

A few weeks before I got the N900 I got a Netwalker, which is basically a continuation of the Zaurus. It is similar specs to N900, but the Netwalker is *far* slower... It now remains off except when my son plays burgerspace.

-Jeff

Indeed I was not... EPOC32, OPL, serial port... eeek :-)

Of course, that was 12 years ago !

However, the size-to-functionality ratio of EPOC32 binaries, and their speed on 33/66 Mhz CPUs, were exceptional even for the time, not to mention now. And the UIs of apps like Calendar, on that 640*240 screen, were more efficient than most of what we have on our beautiful new hardware...

I almost jumped too, when I saw the announcement. But from the first reviews I quickly understood that Sharp had "lost its touch" since the Zaurus days...

I started with the Sl-5000 D (yes developer version) when the Zaurus first came out. It was an exciting development in the Linux -on-a-PDA space.

Then I bouthg a SL-6000 (the US version) and the SL-C3100. Later sold the SL-6000 only because the clamshell form factor was so much better.

In fact I have to admid I was very much biased toward the clamshell factor - so much that I swore I wouldn't but those sliding keyboards (they were just starting to come out in various forms).

Another thing I was of the opinion in those days was having a modular design - so CF card slot to put in a CF Wifi or CF Bluetooth module and SD cards for memory etc - which served me fine. But then I realised once I had built-i Wifi and Bluetooth - that I would never go back to the modular design - since it was a pain carrying all those extra cards with you and swapping each out and in every time you wanted to change from Wifi to BT or whatever.

I'm thinking my SL-6000L might still be an interesting companion (the ever elusive N model with bluetooth would be even cooler) to the n900 given the large screen and extra storage options (SD and CF)

But last I tried 2.6 on the 6k WiFi on the device was still an issue, preventing suspends etc... I'll try out the latest angstrom on it when I get a chance. (Of course since the Z will function as USB host, usbnet might be an option )

Also would like to thank you for all your contributions to the Zaurus community, you've certainly helped make my device experience better over the years.

From my interactions with Nokia, the Maemo team, and the device itself I really do think this will be an overall better experience for the Linux community than sharp's efforts ever were.

Me, I can't wait till Maemo switches more fully over to the Qt4 stack.