Sony Ericsson Zylo Review

Zylo is the latest addition in our mobile family from Sony Ericsson. If I have to sum up the review in just one line then, “Sony Ericsson Zylo is a nice 3G phone under budget”.

So let me tell you the Pros and Cons of Zylo… in list style.

Pros:

• It has 2.6-inch, 240X320 resolution screen which is nice enough to do your things on mobile.

• The screen is just .2 – inch larger than my Nokia N73, however, the resolution is same on both devices. Videos look great on Nokia N73 and due to contrast ratios of Zylo, they look even better on it.

• Keys are really soft; it feels like touching a button covered with rose petals. You don’t have to juggle with lots of keys. As you can see in the image, you get a slider phone, so you get some keys to quickly access your phone’s vital features without sliding the screen up and then you have the good old Numpad to dial your numerous friends.

• Because of soft keys it is easier to type for longer periods.

• Message comes in threaded view, like comments. However, if the message is little too long to fit in, you get the sense of it with >>> sign. Open it and you will see the whole message without any extra makeup.

• This message type looks cool because you can get the discussion right on the screen and if you are communicating with your friend from message more than you call him/her. This type will make it look like you are actually chatting with each other.

• 3D type transitions also give this phone a fancy look (though this phone is not 3D in any way). It is great how a budget phone could look so cute and cool at the same time.

• Videos work great when you convert them in MP4 format with 320 kbps bit-rate, else they will lag a bit.

• Sound quality is nice too. But I am afraid that you will have to get yourself some other pair of headphones for a crisp and clear sound. Factory shipped headphones are not up to the mark and it would make you feel like you should not have bought the phone. Sound quality of the phone is fine in comparison to many Nokia Xpress Music phones, because when I connected the phone with a 3.5mm jack adapter and attached my Sony XD 200 headphones, I felt that the music and beat quality of this phone is great.

• So… when you do purchase this mobile, be sure to check out the music quality in a quality headphone. It matters a lot.

• It comes with a 3.15 Mega Pixels camera without LED flash, making photography in low-light or without-light situations that more difficult to shoot. Otherwise, image capture quality is nice enough to share it with your family and friends when you have plenty of light focused on your subjects.
• Call quality is amazing. No annoying buzzing sound or dropped call.

• It comes for only Rs.7000/- and is totally in budget for many college going students and folks who want a quality music centric mobile in budget.

Cons:

• The 3G connectivity is not appreciable. 3G to 2G transition is a problem that I faced a lot with this mobile when I was reviewing it.

• As far as 3G speed is concerned in Zylo, it is just 1 Mbps (could be just in my area) when I came out of my house and searched for signals like I was in a desert or something.

• Videos at 320 Kbps don’t look that much amazing as you might think, also in comparison to many other phones, 2.6-inch screen is far less than what everybody wants right now.

• There is nothing wrong with sound quality, but if they had shipped the mobile with some quality headphones, then one could save himself/herself from spending extra Rs.1000/- for quality headphones.

• PC Companion doesn’t let me connect to Internet with Zylo, even after I updated it to latest version. In this case, Nokia PC Suite is great (for N73 3G in UMTS mode), because it works seamlessly and without any effort, it can be reconfigured to use another network.

• No CD/DVD with the package, you have to connect your mobile with your PC and it will detect PC Companion, then you will have to update it to latest version.

• No additional connectivity options except for 3G and Bluetooth 2.1 with RDS.

• Little too cute for business type users.

Conclusion

My personal opinion is that I would have never bought this mobile because my needs are different. I want a bigger and clearer screen, nice music quality, 3G, Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, etc. To sum up, I want a Smartphone. But for friends who are not into Smartphone thingy, then they will absolutely love Sony Ericsson Zylo, because it is ‘what you see is what you get’ kind of thing.