Seeking to prove it isn"t the dinosaur of the handheld market, Sharp Electronics on Monday relaunched the Zaurus in the United States.
The company, a pioneer of personal organizers with its Wizard in the 1980s, has sold handhelds under the Zaurus brand since the 1990s. However, the device it unveiled Monday at a press conference here is an entirely new beast, running a version of the Linux operating system.
As previously reported, Sharp"s Zaurus SL-5500 handheld uses Lineo"s version of Linux, is powered by Intel"s 206MHz StrongARM processor, and has both CompactFlash and Secure Digital expansion slots. It offers 64MB of memory and a reflective TFT screen, which can be viewed as easily outdoors as indoors and supports 16-bit color. The device can also run Java programs.