Sharp has announced its new SL-6000 series of Zaurus PDAs. What sets Sharp's PDAs apart from similar models from other vendors is that instead of using the two most popular PDA operating systems, Windows Mobile for Pocket PC and the Palm OS, the company leverages Linux for its devices.

Unlike other recent Zaurus models, the new series comes in a traditional tablet style rather than a clamshell. Like the earlier clamshell models, the SL-6000 series also has a QWERTY keyboard, except with this series the keyboard appears when the bottom of the device is pulled down.


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All the models in the series run on a 400MHz Intel XScale processor, 1500 mAh Lithium polymer battery, 64 MB of RAM and 64MB of Flash memory. The series also features a large 4-inch CG Silicon display that has a VGA resolution of 480 x 640 pixels. They also have Secure Digital and CompactFlash slots for memory expansion with an optional sleeve available to add an additional CompactFlash slot and battery.

According to the company, the embedded Linux PDAs have been designed for and will be targeted to corporate users, and can run Java as well as Linux applications. Of the three models in the series, the SL-6000L includes Wi-Fi, the SL-6000W features Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, while the Sl-6000N has neither Bluetooth or Wi-Fi.

Sharp said it is working with IBM to develop mobile field force solutions for the new Zaurus. For example, the Wi-Fi enabled SL-6000 series running WebSphere Everyplace Connection Manager software allows mobile employees to securely roam with high speed access to information across multiple networks without interrupting Web connections or losing an existing session. So remote workers will be able to access Web applications like PIM and e-mail and also be able to retrieve information from IBM's DB2 database software. The Sharp Zaurus also supports IBM's WebSphere Everyplace Multimodal Environment for Embedix, which allows end users to run multimodal applications.


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Pricing for the new Zaurus PDAs hasn't been made available. They should hit the U.S. market sometime during the first quarter. Release dates in Japan are 12/10 for the SL-6000N, 12/24 for the SL-6000L, and 1/23 for the SL-6000W.