The first generation left us a deep impression but I hardly see many people actually using it. I read the news about the second generation of Sony Mylo and here are some thoughts.
- Stronger phone feature. The idea of a internet based phone is quite practical. In big cities, like Hong Kong or cities in Japan and also US big cities, it is quite possible that wireless coverage is full in the near future. Then Sony Mylo has the potential to be the first and coolest phone to take advantage of that. Skype is great and I have actually tried to use my PDA combined with skype to replace my cell phone for a while. Besides some inconveniences, the call qualities and stabilities are great. So it can definitely be a hit for college students. But I did read comments about Sony Mylo's phone quality not being so good and Skype with Linux does not yet work as well as its Windows counterparts. So Sony should work on that and maybe someday build their Skype alternative.
- Text messages. Text messages are important. A phone(even a WIFI phone) without text messaging will not be a great phone. We would even compromise to the extent that Sony can use some other internet services. For example, I found this website that lets you send free text messages and Sony may provide like a number to all Mylo users that they can ask their friends to text them to this number with their email addresses or some ID number and the text messages will be forwarded etc. (Even though push would be nice.) Zipit is a little Linux based device (which actually "supports up to 99 concurrent AOL, Yahoo, and/or MSN chat sessions"). If Zipit can do it, Sony should be able to do it too.
Better PDA features. A QWERTY keyboard is really nice if it is well designed. A lot of Blackberry lovers, on top of internet and everything else that many other phones offer too, are enchanted simply by Blackberry's keyboard. Web browser. With $300+ piece a gadget, I can't imagine the browser to be do any worse than Opera mobile. Otherwise, why just make a contract with Opera to pre-install it. (I am mentioning them because a lot of people complained on both of these important features.)
- Storage. Camera needs storage; music needs storage; games need storage. I think 2G+ internal storage is not negotiable.
- Accessories. I don't know of any piece of electronics that succeeded without good accessories. Creative came up with the idea of hard disk mp3 player and their mp3 players use removable battery. But how many mp3 players does Creative sell, 1% of iPod? So, at least an arm band, or probably a holster? Come on, Sony always did well with its bags and stuff. I own a Sony MZ-NH1 and all its accessories are so well designed.
- SDK, development kit. Sony Mylo is supposed to aim at the enthusiasts. If you don't let people do anything, how can people be enthusiastic?
Overall, Sony Mylo has an attracting appearance and some promising potentials. I hope the design of second generation learn from the first, take advantage of Sony's DC, MP3, PSP experiences and make Sony Mylo 2 a great gadget.
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