By Alice Hill
RealTechNews
Sony is getting into the WiFi-based personal communicator business with the brand new . Short for My Life Online, Mylo ships with Skype, Google Talk and Yahoo! Messenger pre-loaded and lets you IM or make Internet calls via any 802.11b hotspot. It ships in September 2006 for a retail price of $350
When you’re not browsing your favorite news, sports, weather and financial Websites with mylo’s built-in HTML Web browser, reach out to any Skype®-enabled device and place free Internet phone calls. Mylo is also a music player that plays back MP3, ATRAC® and secured and unsecured WMA formats. Share your playlists and stream songs between two mylo devices with Sony’s Ad Hoc communication mode. In addition to a Hotspot Locater which directs you to nearby locations offering Internet access, view and share MPEG-4 videos and JPEG pictures on mylo’s colorful screen. Source:
Product Features:(from Sony)
What’s Up Screen
The unique What’s Up screen is an at-a-glance overview of your choice of friends, showing who’s available for IM or voice calling. The What’s Up screen also displays what music is currently being played.
Instant Messaging
Reach friends on three of the fastest-growing instant messaging services: Yahoo!®, Google® and Skype®. Use the Info button to switch among multiple IM conversations.
E-mail
Send and receive email with many of the most popular web mail clients: Yahoo! Mail®, GMail and more. The slide-out QWERTY keyboard means you can type without the hassle of the repeated key-presses you’d need on the number keypad of the typical mobile device.
Web Browsing
The mylo communicator allows you to browse virtually any HTML website allowing you to scroll horizontally and vertically through the page, fit to the QVGA width of the communicator screen or you can zoom in to display Web pages at full resolution or zoom out to fit pages to the width of the screen (50%-150%). Mylo communicator’s Web browser is HTML not WAP like the browsers found on many portable devices.
Internet Voice Calls
Skype® lets you enjoy free Internet phone calls to and from any Skype-enabled device, anywhere in the world! Or SkypeOut to any phone number for a nominal fee.
Music
The mylo communicator plays back MP3, ATRAC® or WMA (secured and unsecured) audio formats. Play music you’ve purchased from many online music stores. Perfect for multi-tasking, you can listen to music while you IM or surf the Web. With Sony’s Ad Hoc communication mode, you can share your play lists and stream songs directly between two mylo units-one at a time.
Video
Enjoy MPEG-4 personal videos on the color screen. Transfer files to the Memory Stick Duoâ„¢ media card (optional) or by Sony’s Image Converter 2 software (optional).
Long Battery Life
Mylo communicator’s Lithium-ion battery life offers up to 3.5 hours of talk time in Internet calling, up to 7 hours Web browsing and up to 45 hours of Music Playback1.
Pictures
Download and view hundreds of JPEG pictures from the Internet or from your digital camera. Transfer pictures using the supplied mylo Image Transfer software, by dragging and dropping or via an optional Memory Stick Duoâ„¢ media card.
Hotspot Locator
There are millions of WiFi hotspots including over 15 million American homes, almost every university campus, plus shopping malls, coffee shops, fast food restaurants, hotels, airports and border-to-border coverage in a growing number of U.S. cities. Enter your current location and the mylo communicator will direct you to the nearest of over 20,000 free and pay public hotspots in the U.S.
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We Say: If the screen quality is anything like the PSP and the unit does the 7 hours of Web browsing, then this is a very fine day for Sony.
Now…here is why we think the Mylo is not going make it.
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This device may get some competition from the zune.
Good point. The category is heating up.
Preston Gralla wrote a great condemnation of the mylo:
“So let’s sum this up. It’s a device for people who are devoted to instant messaging, but won’t work with biggest IM networks in the world. It costs as much or more than handheld gaming devices, but won’t let you play games. And the Skype capabilities are nice, but the target audience already has cellphones.”
That was a great point.
No UMD either
I predict this thing is DOA. At the pricepoint it’s more expensive than the phone it competes with (sidekick) in that demographic. IM features that are closed-network cannot compete with SMS, as, again, the target demographic is very into SMS. I predict this thing’ll end up in the ‘failed convergence’ graveyard next to the Audrey.
But that’s just me.
Couldn’t they have done this with their PSP – Mylo is a piece of shit without gaming option!
Amped Mobile and Helio have already beat Sony in the teen online arena. Sony is late to the party once again.
Helio is great and all ….NOT!
I don’t want a Scientology controlled phone network snooping on all of my phone data!
Many of us dream of a device that would free our cell phones from the burden of email, IM, web surfing, and music and video playback. And many of us couldn’t care less about gaming. For this crowd, the mylo seems very promising, but for it to be a must have, it needs to provide eBook reader functionality, iPod-sized storage capacity, PSP-like mini-disk capability, USB data transfer, and Bluetooth capability for headsets. I would pay $400 for such a device.
Mobile IM, Skype, Browsing And More: Sony Mylo Preview
Video Source: Gizmodo.com Sony’s Mylo, due to hit the streets in September, is a lightweight solution to wireless internet browsing, instant messaging and making Skype calls away from the shackles of the desktop. In a web video exclusive, our…
This is a very cool device with music videos and mp3 2 im getting one
no aim?> cant you just go to aim.com and do aim express?
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i hav da sony mylo and its sik but i kant find out how 2 put videos on it