Created: 12 September 2026 · Last edited: 2 September 2026

The SL-A300 “Discovery”, released in August 2002, was a radical departure from Sharp's earlier Linux Zaurus designs. Rather than a slide-out keyboard, it adopted an exceptionally thin and lightweight keyboardless PDA form factor, with input handled through the 3.5-inch touchscreen and stylus. At just 69.4 × 113 × 12.5 mm and approximately 120 g, Sharp described it as the world's smallest and lightest colour PDA. It featured a 200 MHz Intel XScale PXA210 processor, 64 MB of SDRAM and a 240 × 320-pixel, 65,536-colour reflective TFT display with front light.

The Discovery ran Embedix Linux and was designed particularly around viewing and exchanging information with a PC. Its applications included a web browser, e-mail, office software compatible with common Microsoft Office formats, and Sharp's Zaurus Shot and Zaurus Drive utilities, which provided particularly close integration with Windows PCs. Expansion was provided by an SD/MMC card slot, while an optional CE-JC1 Communication Adapter added a CompactFlash Type II slot and an additional battery, allowing CF memory, PHS and wired or wireless LAN cards to be used. Other connectivity included USB 1.1, IrDA and a stereo headphone output.