Our Sony Ericsson Zylo Review

When is a phone not a phone? When it's primarily a music player with phone added on. That's what it seems like to use the Sony Ericsson Zylo mobile phone. Although it has all the widgets of a smartphone, the lack of a touchscreen makes it fiddly to operate. Indeed, it's like taking a trip back in time, before everything got all touchy-feely.

Marketed as a Walkman phone, the accent here is on sound quality, and Sony's top-notch reputation for sonic excellence is well represented here. Integration with YouTube and social networking apps shows just who this handset is aimed at. This is exemplified by the cool retro cassette tape on the slider interface, where the label shows information on the track you are listening to. Bizarrely, you can play songs and even pre-loaded soundscapes, such as an office or busy road while calling, so you can pretend to be somewhere you're not.

The Zylo interface is simple, with easy access to your favourite apps, web browsing and the media apps. There's even an in-built accelerometer for viewing web pages in landscape mode. For a phone that's around £90 on PAYG, this is a bonus.

The address book is similar to those already on Sony Ericsson models, so will be familiar to existing users. Unfortunately, there's no way you can synchronise your Facebook or Twitter contacts, despite apps for these two sites being built in. But calling or messaging anyone in the contacts list is simple to do, without overwhelming you with unnecessary options.

The NetFront browser is faster than you might expect for a phone of this price, and gives you immediate options to use Google, a bookmark or manually type in an address, which no-one has done for years - let Google do the work for you. But start typing and previously visited sites will pop up instantly to save time.

While the Sony Ericsson Zylo mobile phone's camera only boasts 3.2 megapixels, its results are those of a unit with a lot more capability. Although there aren't many options or picture set-up, you won't need things like colour balance, contrast and metering as the factory settings produce surprisingly good results. This is also true of the video recorder, which has the neat option of easily uploading your masterpieces on to YouTube.

Battery life on the Zylo was good, even with a lot of browsing and video going on, but one fault is that it's too easy to leave the browser open and use up battery life when you think the phone is just sitting and waiting.

What We Liked

Surprisingly good media and web use for an old-fashioned looking handset.

What We Disliked

The Sony Ericsson Zylo mobile phone is let down by its unimaginative and outdated design.

Our Final Verdict

For a budget price, you get a lot of the same features as a touchscreen, although their use is limited.

Compare Handsets

	Read Review
	Sony Ericsson Zylo
General
Form Factor	Candybar
Dimensions	103 x 52 x 11.5 (mm)
Talk Time	210 mins
Standby Time	400 hours
Weight	120 g
Quad Band	Yes
Photo and Video
Camera	3.20 megapixels
Video Player	Yes
Phone
Smart Phone	Yes
Internal Memory	260MB
Memory Card Type	MicroSD (max 16GB)
Messaging
Instant Messaging (IM)	Yes
Video Messaging	Yes
Screen
Colour Screen	Yes
Touch Screen	Yes
Connectivity
3G	Yes
Bluetooth	Yes
WAP	Yes
Web Browser	Yes
Music and Radio
FM Radio	Yes
MP3 Player	Yes
MP3 Ringtones	Yes
Additional Content
Downloadable Content	Yes
Downloadable Games	Yes
Downloadable Ringtones	Yes

Sony Ericsson Zylo Full Specification

General

Photo and Video

Phone

Messaging

Screen

Connectivity

Music and Radio

Additional Content