Mylo (short for My Life Online) is not a cellphone or a PDA but it can browse the Internet and do Internet-based communications like web-based emailing and calling solutions like Skype. You can use it in any Wi-Fi hot spot and in fact it glows when a network is available. For a one-time purchase fee of $350 USD, U.S. college students dashing from one class to another can mimic BlackBerry-toting urban professionals. The Sidekick costs less but without additional calling or messaging fees, Mylo looks like the better deal. But the fact remains that it’s still not a cell phone. You can use SkypeOut for free, of course, but after this year you’ll have to dish out 2 cents for every minute of call. And there’s the security considerations as SkypeOut calls are generally traceable even when anonymizing protocol is applied (read the wikipedia entry).
Recently, the Sony Corporation have announced a one-year free connectivity on T-Mobile USA’s 7000+ hot spots. But free Wi-Fi is almost everywhere these days, especially in big cities. What’s a Mylo for then? Sony has been marketing this device to the college crowd, but that niche has largely ignored the Mylo and even complained that it doesn’t come out of the shelf with games already installed (more complaints here and more leisurely discussion of Mylo here).
The basic Play Station Portable (PSP) only costs $199 and $249 for the Entertainment Pack, and considering PSPs host of multimedia capabilities, including Wi-Fi connectivity, that are open to PSP users with the know-how (go to wikipedia), $350 doesn’t seem all that reasonable after all.
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