Sony Ericsson Zylo Review

Introduction:

Sony's Walkman brand has given a lot to mankind, from the first mobile cassette player to the Sony Ericsson Zylo, which we are about to review. We have always liked the idea  of having Walkman-branded devices (yes, we are old school), but how will the Zylo perform as a music-centered phone? Read on to find out...

What's in the box

• Sony Ericsson Zylo handset
• 900mAh Li-Ion battery
• Manual and quick start guide
• Charger
• Headset with microphone

Design:

The Sony Ericsson Zylo has the typical slider form factor we are used to seeing in many of the company's handsets, with rounded edges, and a slightly curved back panel, which makes it pleasant to hold. The handset is rather smallish, and to operate it with one hand, you have to support it the usual way with the pinky, or even the ring finger. Well, that's why nature gave us opposing thumbs, we guess. The Zylo is built well and the slider mechanism snaps back and forth with ease.



You can compare the Sony Ericsson Zylo with many other phones using our Size Visualization Tool.

The screen is a regular 2.6” QVGA resolution display with average visibility in direct sunlight. The screen is able to display 262 thousand colors, and its glass cover is rated as scratch-resistant. No touchy-feely here, operating the UI is done mainly by the six buttons and the circular d-pad under the screen. The send and end buttons on both sides are decently sized and easy to press, but the two soft keys and the two little activity and clear keys are extremely small, and with shallow travel. The navigation ring of the d-pad is not the most correct of them all either, but you get used to it after some time with the phone.


Pushing the screen part up reveals a traditional numeric keypad with a smooth plastic feel on the buttons. They are fairly large and really easy to press with deep travel.

As a typical Walkman series phone, the Sony Ericsson Zylo has a dedicated button to fire up the music player on the right, just below the volume rocker. The Walkman key is also utilized as a camera button, but you have to start the camera software from the menu first, again annoying. The only other element around the phone is the charging/headset port on the left. The company is still bothering us and itself with proprietary connectors, so you will have to buy an adapter cable if you want to use another headset.


The 3.2MP camera on the back is also a video recorder without an LED light to it (or any sort of light). There is a chrome-like band surrounding the Sony Ericsson Zylo, but our review unit was the silver version, so it didn't make much distinction. The chrome color would stand out better on the black or the pink versions of the Zylo.

Interface and functionality:

The Zylo interface experience is worsened by the extremely small and uncomfortable to press soft keys. Other than that, there are a lot of thoughtful touches throughout the interface, such as the ability to add widgets on the home screen. Facebook, Twitter, MySpace, Music Genie and Walk Mate are all available to be placed as live feeds on your default home screen, and shuffled with the d-pad. The phone has an accelerometer, which switches the screen orientation. It is also used as a volume adjustment by waving the phone up and down in the music player, or as a pedometer in the Walk Mate application.



The phonebook on the Sony Ericsson Zylo is a simple list of contacts with their phone numbers; there is no integration with social networks, but it is searchable with the keypad from the homescreen. The handset also offers a video calling function, which uses the primary 3.2MP camera on the back of the phone.


There are twelve icons in the main menu, which can be arranged in a grid, swirled, or scrolled through as single icons. The Organizer menu, for example, contains all the utilities like Calendar or File Manager. The calendar is very basic - a step-by-step wizard guides you through setting up an event with an alarm to it, but it is simple and intuitive.



Messaging:

Since the keypad is the only way to enter text on the Zylo, you probably won't be using it for long emails, but there is an email app, which downloaded our Gmail settings automatically, and even supports push email and large message sizes. Text messaging is threaded. and attaching multimedia to your message is easily accessible under the text box.

Connectivity and Data:

The Sony Ericsson Zylo has no Wi-Fi chip, thus for data transfer you have to rely on its 3G connection, which offers you up to 7.2Mbps download speeds. The phone also has Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP for wireless stereo music.

The browser is NetFront, with a good rendering functionality, but poor settings choice and fiddly menu. Of course, using a browser on such a small screen is only for the most patient among us.

Camera and Multimedia:

The Zylo's 3.2MP camera takes below average photos, with a lot of noise and little detail. Indoor shots only work under strong lighting conditions, as there is no flash. Despite that the phone doesn't have a GPS module, pictures can be geotagged by roughly triangulating the position from the cell towers around.



The handset’s video recording mode is VGA. There are no official fps specs, but our video test shot appears as 30fps on some players, and 24fps on others. Regardless of which one is politically correct, the quality is actually pretty smooth for the camera specs. We'd be remiss not to mention that the phone played MPEG-4 videos up to a VGA resolution without a hitch.

Sony Ericsson Zylo sample video at 640x480 pixels resolution.

Sony Ericsson has included the latest 4.0 version of its Walkman software with the Zylo, which has some pretty themes and allows for searches by artist, album, playlists, and  genres. Since it is a Walkman series phone, in there are Sony's proprietary Clear Audio technology and gesture control. The music formats support is broad, and the Zylo can even deal with the FLAC codec for high quality lossless audio. The speaker is very loud, and outputs clear sound even at the highest volume.


To fully enjoy the music, though, you will probably have to get better headphones than the ones supplied. Not that they are bad - the base sounds are pretty deep and overall quality is high, but the intensity is low, it's just not the blast you would expect from a Walkman series headset. Who knows, there might be restrictions in place for headset decibel levels now. We would also add to the wish list some sort of a surround sound in headset mode like on some of the latest phones. After all, the Zylo is a music-centered device.

Software:

A bunch of useful applications is bundled with the Sony Ericsson Zylo - chief among those are Google Maps and the YouTube client, which works surprisingly well. Additional apps like the barcode scanner NeoReader can be downloaded from PlayNow on demand. Unfortunately, the supplied games are trial versions.

TrackID is included as with most company phones recently to recognize the song currently being played around you. The Walkman handset also has the SensMe feature for categorizing and playing songs tailored to your mood, or the time of the day.

Performance:

Incoming calls sounded a bit quiet in the Zylo's ear speaker. We cranked up the volume to the max and it was still not enough, so expect troubles hearing if you are in a noisy environment. We were told that voice quality was good and the sound strong on the receiving end, though. The 920mAh battery is rated for the paltry 3.5 hours of talk time in 3G mode, and 17 days of standby.

Conclusion:

The Zylo is a well-made music handset in a traditional slider form factor we've come to expect from Sony Ericsson. It is pretty average in terms of features, but carries all its phone and messaging duties with dignity, and has some audio perks to justify the Walkman brand. The phone provides a good loudspeaker and headset, and even plays songs encoded in the lossless quality FLAC format, so we can easily label the time spent with it as a true Walkman experience.

If you are looking for a cheaper version of the Walkman-branded phones, feel free to wait for the Sony Ericsson Spiro, which should be hitting the market any day now. It is  a 2G phone and doesn't support FLAC audio, but has a standard audio jack.

Sony Ericsson Zylo Video Review: