Sony mylo - hit or miss?

London, England, UK (SANEPR.com) October 10, 2006 -- According to Sony's site the mylo is about "all the fun things you do on your PC, concentrated in the palm of your hand." Or more specifically its about "Instant Messaging. Web Browsing. Music. Pictures. Videos." Reviews of the device have been mixed and Blompo.com have been following the latest opinion at http://www.blompo.com/sony-mylo

One of the first reviews to come in for the mylo was from those bastions of opinion, ZDNet. They were not impressed with the lack of cellular connectivity, pointing out that young people are still going to want their cell phone as well. "Are kids really going to carry around two devices? Why not just get the T-Mobile Sidekick 3?", they asked.

Laptop magazine were no less eager to point out the Sidekick comparison, but also saw a niche for the mylo to fit in. Despite the fact that the mylo is more expensive than the Sidekick they said that "for those living on Wi-Fi-blanketed campuses who would rather carry a superslim cell all of the time and a messaging/entertainment device some of the time, the mylo has the goods."

There have been mixed messages too about the browsing experience on the Sony mylo. Vidals pointed out that the mylo didn't browse well on the key teen portal, MySpace, and that the lack of flash meant that YouTube videos could not be displayed. Spicy Gadget Roll however were impressed with the way that Sony had managed to compress pages on the mylo's tiny screen: "thanks to the fit to width mode I've done very little horizontal scrolling, which I consider to be the devil of mobile web browsing."

In terms of features, generally the reviews where positive. Most reported good quality when using Skype, Wireless Wonders loved the What's Up screen to show who's online ("The interface looks great. I've been waiting for someone to take the UI out of its mundane must-be-like-a-phone design.") and the Indianapolis Star pointed out that "it boasts a gigabyte of internal storage for music, photos and MPEG-4 video files." However Stale Betty seemed to be the first to notice a glaring omission: "But no camera??? If it had a camera, I think I might give up my Sidekick for this bad boy."

A lot of the mylo's other reviews have been positive. It seems that rather than the actual quality of the device itself, opinion makers are more concerned about whether the Sony mylo will actually find a market without any cellular network support. Many followed the mixed messages of the Arizona Daily Star: "It's cute, but is it worth investing in a device that's fully functional only at Wi-Fi hot spots? Students on a Wi-Fi-enabled campus might think so, but $350 is a lot even if you're saving on monthly fees."