Sharp Zaurus SL-5000D Review

Unlike the current crop of Pocket PCs, the Zaurus can not play MP3's or other 'real' audio thru the internal speaker. You must listen thru headphones. The internal speaker is a piezo buzzer which means that it will really only play beeps, boops and clicks. To me this is very disappointing because I want to be able to be able to set alarm sounds that are more interesting then the lame phone ringer one that is included. I also want to play games that have great sound without having to wear earphones. That said, the stereo output thru headphones sounds great! I think the Zaurus has the best sound quality for playing MP3's of any PDA that I've tested so far. The volume level is also quite good. Compared to my HP 565 and iPAQ 3670, it is about 10% louder than the HP and about 20% quieter than the iPAQ. I never listen to MP3's on the highest volume setting anyway, so I find the levels to be perfect.