Me and My Mylo

After initially dismissing the Mylo from Sony as something half baked, I decided that I really can't judge a book by its cover so I decided to plunk down the $350 at the Sony Style Store in Las Vegas this weekend and take a gamble on it.

My first impressions are "this is cool" and its functionality and UI goes a long way to making it Mac like easy to use right out of the box. As Jim Courtney points out the quality of Skype calls on the Mylo is downright impressive and this is due to the folks at Sony not going with GIPS but with another, and apparently far better audio processing software from Trinity Convergence.

Never in the years of using Skype or any VoIP or online voice communications tool has the communications sounded so clear. And like with TV sets and portable devices you have come to expect that from Sony the Mylo certainly lives up to that reputation.

After my call with Jim I placed some other calls, some Skype To Skype and other Skype to PSTN and found the quality to be as good or better than my new UT Starcom F3000 and Broadvoice.

This morning I had an international VoIP call with a friend in Europe. I had him dial me via his USA VoIP carrier to my Skype In number. The sound quality was amazingly good, and considering I'm on hotel broadband, using my Zyxel travel router, the better than cellular or landline experience has to be heard to be believed.

What has this caused me to do that will impact how I stay connected? Well for starters I've renewed my UK Skype In number so friends in the UK and Europe can easily reach me. I've also added my USA Skype In Number to GrandCentral so when I'm on the road with my laptop I can elect to take the call via Skype or Gizmo Project without having to worry about the cellular connection when I'm on the road.

Interestingly enough, SONY has cut a deal with T-Mobile that begins in November which provides a years' free access at hotspots. This is a boon to people like me who already have a T-Mobile account as I can now use my PC and a mobile phone like device that looks like a really cool cell phone or MP3 player to receive and place calls over without turning on the laptop and looking a bit out of place. The free year basically means the Mylo was free.

Also on the Mylo is Google Talk and Yahoo Messenger, neither offering voice, plus a Windows Media and MP3 playback system, as well as the Opera browser.

So here's my first day impressions. As a Skype and IM device for the on the go types it's good. Does it come close to Blackberry ease of use. No. Is it able to receive email? Only via a web browser interface, and it is not very friendly to Outlook Exchange based interfaces, so it loses points to the Nokia 770 in this regard as you can do that well with the 770 as well as have voice communications via Gizmo Project or GTalk, but as a Skype on the Go device it's worth having, at least until something "I know is better" comes along.