Sony mylo - Swiss Army Knife of personal media & WiFi comms

[Bob Crabtree]

Sony's $350 mylo handheld gadget acts as a Skype WiFi phone, a web browser, an online texting device and an emailer - and plays music, videos and stills to boot!

Find out more about in this HEXUS.lifestyle.headline about this Swiss Army Knife of personal media and WiFi comms and let us know what you think of its chances of success - assuming it goes worldwide, rather than in a few selected countries.

[charleski]

It's only as good as an iPod if the sceen scratches easily or the plastic discolours. I suppose being too hot to hold would count as well.

But seriously - a lot depends on the quality of the PC/Mac/Linux (well, live in hope) software. Does it perform anything like iTunes? Does it have a built-in link to an online store for those people who actually buy music? The success of the iPod is founded as much on iTunes and the iTMS as the device itself.

And 1Gb built-in, but you get to buy expensive and incompatible memory sticks? Joy. That alone is a deal-killer for me.

[TheAnimus]

theres plenty of editorial about "symphony" that is OpenMG, the conflict between sony records and sony electronics, sony records make a sinful amount more than electronics, so guess who wins, and the consumer looses.

my money is on a nasty check in check out system.

[Whiternoise]

As a product, this seems quite the deal, but whether it's an iPod killer remains to be seen (i don't use an iPod, although i do have a sony NWA3000). At almost double the price tag of an iPod that has 20 times the in-built memory, then it seems pretty poor. Especially when expansion will be expensive (though aren't memory cards up to 8gb being produced?).

The specs seem ok(ish). Battery life is the usual - nothing on except audio-out (and mute on of course) will give you the full amount of time. I'm assuming you could get round the problem of memory by putting media on a web-server (or finding it online) and then streaming it to the device.. 35 degrees seems awfully low as a maximum operating temp, especially if this tihing is riding around in your pocket all day and 5 degrees is quite high for a minimum, meaning no uses in the snow guys (surely colder is better..?)

Software wise, SonicStage is about average - nowhere near as good as iTunes as iPod people will undoubtably say - it doesn't hog memory that much and is easy to use (although track/album recognition is woeful - it has a habit of seperating albums with "various artists" into each separate artist.. </rant>)
If Mylo is anywhere near as bad a debut sofware as connect then Sony is in serious trouble.

I think i will wait for a price drop, a possible next generation and of course - a Hexus.net review to back it up before i spend 200 quids worth of money on it - considering a DS will have a lot of those functions in the future anyway) - if it had a camera then i might be tempted..

(lol thats my pennethworth in)

anyone know whether MSN addresses are compatible with google or yahoo messenger? i somehow doubt that sony could afford the rights to getting MSN messenger installed..

[Noli]

er... so this product doesn't work on normal mobile networks? which means it will exist *in addition* to your mobile phone. Given that you can't guarantee wi-fi hotspots or that your skype buddies (what few of them i have) will be online and that both wi-fi itself and skype often drop calls... i'd rather just keep my mobile and forget it.

it's clever sure but technology actually has to be USEFUL for me to want it...

[chrestomanci]

But seriously - a lot depends on the quality of the PC/Mac/Linux (well, live in hope) software. Does it perform anything like iTunes? Does it have a built-in link to an online store for those people who actually buy music? The success of the iPod is founded as much on iTunes and the iTMS as the device itself.

Past experence suggests not, I have noticed in recent years that Sony hardware design appears to be under the thumb of the media arm of the company and all hardware products are DRM locked down to the point that they are barely usefull. Chances are this will only play Sony protected media files, and any mp3s you try to load will be badly (and slowly) converted to that format. The software will probably suck, crash a lot and drop some nasty DRM rootkit or suchlike.

And 1Gb built-in, but you get to buy expensive and incompatible memory sticks? Joy. That alone is a deal-killer for me.

Agreed, thought the price of memory sticks is coming down, and some sony aficonados will already have a fair collection. I would prefer a standard type such as MMC, but that was never going to happen from Sony.

[Steve B]

cough cough betamax?

[Bob Crabtree]

Steve,

If you're going to say that, then the very least you should do is give a list of defunct Sony products.

That's not hard to do but nor is it hard to list out numerous failed products from a whole range of successful companies.

The only way to avoid failure is not to launch anything at all.

My personal take on the mylo isn't terribly relevant but, to me, it definitely does look like a much more appealing product than Netgear's offering, which is just a Skype WiFi phone and is slated to sell for just $50 less.

What I don't doubt is that Skype WiFi phones will do very good business - I'm just not predicting, right now, which ones they'll be!

Oh, and, chrestomanci, Sony's press release - which is included on the second page of the news story - says, "It supports the playback of MP3, ATRAC&#174; or WMA (secure and unsecure) files."

I don't know if this is true but that IS what the release says.

[HyeongSeong]

The unit - offered in black or white - measures 123(w) x 23.9(d) 63(h)mm and weighs 150g, including a lithium-ion rechargeable battery that, Sony points, out is removable. It features a slide out QWERTY keyboard, 1GB of internal flash memory (940KB available to the user) and a 2.4in LCD. This runs at QVGA (320x240) resolution and shows 65,536 colours.

Only 940kb is avaliable to the User ? I really hope that is a typo otherwise you really do need to buy a memory stick ( a way for sony to sell more memory stick ?)

[dangel]

Steve,

If you're going to say that, then the very least you should do is give a list of defunct Sony products.

That's not hard to do but nor is it hard to list out numerous failed products from a whole range of successful companies.

The only way to avoid failure is not to launch anything at all.

My personal take on the mylo isn't terribly relevant but, to me, it definitely does look like a much more appealing product than Netgear's offering, which is just a Skype WiFi phone and is slated to sell for just $50 less.

What I don't doubt is that Skype WiFi phones will do very good business - I'm just not predicting, right now, which ones they'll be!

Oh, and, chrestomanci, Sony's press release - which is included on the second page of the news story - says, "It supports the playback of MP3, ATRAC® or WMA (secure and unsecure) files."

I don't know if this is true but that IS what the release says.

I'm wary of Sony - they just love to lock people into their products (memory stick duo springs to mind) and most of them seem rather irrelevant (minidisc, mylo) to me. I can't see this does more than say, a smartphone which has wifi onboard (and EDGE/bluetooth/gsm). Why carry two devices when one will do and can be had on a contract? I can pop a 4 gig SD card in my phone, can playback video/audio, slide out keyboard, touch screen, handwriting recognition, speech recognition etc etc.
Just my own personal take, but I just don't see the need for such a device when their are far more capable mobile solutions out there that aren't _just_ useful near wifi hotspots (which are far a few between).

[chrestomanci]

Oh, and, chrestomanci, Sony's press release - which is included on the second page of the news story - says, "It supports the playback of MP3, ATRAC® or WMA (secure and unsecure) files."

I know, I read that as well, however past experence with Sony is that what they actualy mean is that their PC application accepts all those formats and will convert them to DRM protected ATRAC and load them onto the device.

I could be wrong, perhaps you can take an ordinary memory stick, fill it with mp3s using a normal card reader, and then play them using your sony mylo (or your mate's sony mylo, passing the memory stick arround), but the cynic in me thinks not.

[Lee H]

anyone know whether MSN addresses are compatible with google or yahoo messenger? i somehow doubt that sony could afford the rights to getting MSN messenger installed..

MSN are teaming up with Yahoo apparently to allow interoperability between their messaging platforms.

You can see the press release HERE and the yahoo site says they can contact Live messenger users on there as well

[Bob Crabtree]

I know, I read that as well, however past experence with Sony is that what they actualy mean is that their PC application accepts all those formats and will convert them to DRM protected ATRAC and load them onto the device.

I could be wrong, perhaps you can take an ordinary memory stick, fill it with mp3s using a normal card reader, and then play them using your sony mylo (or your mate's sony mylo, passing the memory stick arround), but the cynic in me thinks not.

I'm having no luck right now getting anyone on Sony UK's PR side to talk to me about the product.

However, what I will do once someone stirs is ask them specifically about DRM - across the board - on the mylo.

Oh, and I did a search on Sony USA's style site for 'mylo' and drew a blank - except, that is for being offered some CDs to buy - by a band called Mylo!

[Bob Crabtree]

MSN are teaming up with Yahoo apparently to allow interoperability between their messaging platforms.

You can see the press release HERE and the yahoo site says they can contact Live messenger users on there as well

Indeed, and if you go to the Yahoo Messenger home page - http://messenger.yahoo.com/ - you'll see this is being mentioned as being possible now.

This is what it says (but do read the footnote - my itals),

IM with friends on Windows Live (MSN) Messenger**
Have all your IM friends in one place. Ping-away with people who use Windows Live (MSN) Messenger. They'll also be on your contact list so you can see when they're online.
** Not all Yahoo! Messenger with Voice features are supported when you IM with your Windows Live™ (MSN) Messenger contacts.

[Lee H]

Oh, and I did a search on Sony USA's style site for 'mylo' and drew a blank - except, that is for being offered some CDs to buy - by a band called Mylo!

Destroy Rock & Roll by any chance - it's a cracking album

[KennyKid]

It's only as good as an iPod if the sceen scratches easily or the plastic discolours. I suppose being too hot to hold would count as well.

But seriously - a lot depends on the quality of the PC/Mac/Linux (well, live in hope) software. Does it perform anything like iTunes? Does it have a built-in link to an online store for those people who actually buy music? The success of the iPod is founded as much on iTunes and the iTMS as the device itself.

And 1Gb built-in, but you get to buy expensive and incompatible memory sticks? Joy. That alone is a deal-killer for me.

exactly ! give it a 60GB drive or something and then in will be a lot more of a crowd pleaser the memory sticks are just a joke i think