Time passed since last Zaurus (SL-C3200 ‘terrier’) was released. Many new interesting devices appeared on market: Nokia N800, FIC Neo1973 and now Nokia N810. Each of them has something extra compared to Zaurus machines — Bluetooth or Wifi or GSM. And each is supported by vendor — thing which cannot be told about Sharp.
Recently few OpenEmbedded developers (Koen, XorA, Mickeyl) wrote that they got developer discount1 for Nokia N810. What does it mean for Zaurus owners?
When developers gets new toys they usually look at pile of palmtops and decide which one go to drawer or eBay and which one will be used. For example I have 8 palmtops2 now and most of time do not use any of them. I will probably use Neo1973 as main PDA when it will reach usable state and rest of devices will be used from time to time to test something. XorA wrote that he will sell own Zaurus machines and give OE devices to someone who wants to maintain them. Koen already do not use his c700 at all, same probably with Mickeyl. As result Zaurus machines will get less and less maintained and will bitrot in next year or two :(
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There was developer program for Nokia 770, then for N800 and recently for N810. I tried with first one and ignored others as they support only developers from few selected countries. ↩
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Those 8 palmtops are: PalmPilot 5000, Palm M105, Sharp Zaurus SL-5500/c760/SL-6000L (OE project device), Nokia 770, 2 FIC Neo1973. ↩