When I bought my Zaurus I was working full time and taking night school courses. I needed a handheld that would help me organize myself. I choose the Zaurus 5000 for both the price and it's linking feature.
However, my needs have changed. I no longer am a full time college student. I needed a device that was small and all the functions of my Zaurus and was cost effective. My first step was to do some research.
The ZR-5000 was a great handheld, but some of its features were outdated. Even though it had email features (I am writing this from my Zaurus), it lacked the ability to send my handwritten notes as attachment. The ZR-5000 also did not had a backlight. Also the ZR-5000 did not have synchronization capabilities. I also found it hard to write handwritten notes.
The conclusion I came to was that I needed a PalmPC, but which one? The Palm Pilot had great 3rd party support, but it was still too much for my budget. The windows ce devices were also too expensive. I could afford either device, what I could not afford was paying for the accessories. I also found that both devices were dependent on the PC for email. I needed a device that was independent of the PC. I felt that the SHARP SE-500 met most of my needs.
There were several selling points for the SE-500. One it had built in 14.4Modem. It had integrated email software. It had a backlight. I had the ability to send my Notes as attachments to anyone. The memory was sufficient for normal purposes. The battery life was good. And most important it was half the price of the cheapest PalmPiolt or Windows CE device.
By: Vijay A. Parekh