Mixed reception for Sony's Mylo
Why put one device in your pocket, when you can take, erm, two?
Engadget has just posted its first impressions of the Mylo, Sony's new device that comes off like the mutant off-spring of a PSP and a (fatally hamstrung) smartphone that goes on sale in the US (not Europe) this month.
Standing for MY Life Online, the Mylo is pitched as a 'personal communicator', although you'll have trouble getting your point across if you're not in range of an open wi-fi network. Because, pointedly, there's no mobile phone functionality.
Instead, you have to use Skype software and the built-in microphone and speaker to make (free) Internet phone calls. Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger are also bundled into the package.
Smaller than a PSP (with a smaller, 2.4 inch colour LCD screen accordingly) and with a hearty 1GB of flash memory (but no UMD disc drive), the only really exciting aspect to the Mylo is the slide-out full QWERTY keyboard, which will make instant messaging, emailing and Internet browsing many times easier than on Sony's games device.
But why else would you spend the whopping $350 being asked? According to Engadget's first impressions, the Mylo is a slick piece of hardware and nicely presented (although it has worries about the legibility of the keyboard), which should appeal to the more affluent wi-fi-enabled college students it's clearly pitched at.
If you're chat-mad, your iPod is due an upgrade, and you spend your life within shouting distance of one of the US's 20,000 open wireless networks, maybe the Mylo will appeal.
But it's not a phone, it doesn't even offer Bluetooth, it's certainly no PSP-rival (the latter is around $100 cheaper) and it's not even clear whether you'll be able to install your own applications on it – whether productive applications or cellphone style games. At $199 and perhaps released in partnership with Google or Yahoo subsidising the hardware to try and tie-up the crucial 18-25-year old audience, it might have been a more feasible proposition.
Still, we do like that keyboard. Can we have one with PSP 2 please Sony?