great hardware, nice OS, terrible interface. (Score 1)

i bought a SL5500 to do two projects: wireless home audio client and on-board guidance system for a large model rocket. i looked at a lot of other tiny/embedded/portable linux options before picking the zaurus; it really did seem like the cheapest way to go in the long run, for my particular set of needs at least.

i'm sure the zaurus will do fine for the second task, which will be all command-line and no UI -- in fact, whenever i get so frustrated with the QTopia and Opie user interfaces, and consider smashing my Zaurus against a large solid object like my own head, i take solace that i will soon blast the stupid thing into outer space instead.

i must object to the statement that there are good mp3/audio apps, at least by my definition of good. the bundled Media Player application sucks. the proprietary media player i downloaded from the TKC for $20 sucks harder. the demoware streaming internet-radio application i tried sucks great gobs. XMMS, while not yet working, already sports the worst UI of all.

"sucking" in this case means failure to work, and/or totally incomprehensible user interface that require simultaneous use of the keyboard, stylus and buttons, and/or caused my zaurus to lock up & requre a hard reset. all of these apps are guilty of all three. the only way i can stream my audio files over the network reliably is with a combination of wget and madplay at the command line.

(and btw, the sound is really good ... as long as you're not plugged in to wall power. the supplied power converter sends a nasty buzz into the audio hardware. so i have to build a power filter, ugh.)

it's great hardware, really. and the OS is Linux. but the user interface is wrong, wrong, wrong. It's basically TrollTech's Qt widget set drawn tiny, which means it's the desktop metaphor placed on a 2x3 inch desk. that's what's wrong with most of the apps. (the netradio app has much weirder metaphor issues: it look like a radio, but you're supposed to click on the wood panelling instead of the knobs. at any rate, it locks up on the shoutcast stream i gave it.)

i'd love to see some new initiatives in PDA user interface come from the open source world. i haven't used PICO yet, but from the screenshots it seems like more of the same desktop, with different eye candy. use any other PDA operating system (except perhaps WINCE) to see some better ideas. especially look at the iPod, which is growing into a full-fledged PDA with huge market share.

i know i shouldn't complain if i'm not willing to help. right now i'm developing a media player for me, based on the iPod menu system but with network abilities. but the same UI approach could drive a whole PDA. it'd be cleaner & simpler that what we have now.