Sony Ericsson Zylo Review

Value for money: 6 out of 10 stars

"... The Zylo is a solid featurephone for those who want a phone with buttons and maybe to play some music. For its price, you can stretch to a smartphone ... for better social applications, or save some money and look at Sony's cheaper Spiro, offering the same basics for less. To be honest, the Zylo would have been great in 2006, but now it's a little behind the times."

Value for money: 4 out of 5 points

According to GadgetSpeak, the Sony Ericsson Zylo, although not the lightest or most compact model currently available, is a curved, slider handset that makes for an attractive, stylish look. Apart from its good looks, the Zylo has a long list of features which should be appealing to many users, particularly when it can be picked up for free on some contracts.

Value for money: 7 out of 10 points

The one thing that really sticks in the gut of Trusted Reviews about the Sony Ericsson Zylo W20i is the fact that even though it is marketed as a music phone, with Sony Walkman branding, it has no standard headphone jack or even adaptor cable so you cannot attach your own headphones. The design and interface of this phone are bog-standard and perfectly sufficient, and at this price, it suits fine as a basic phone with all the necessary features.

Anyone looking for high-end features in the Zylo is likely to be disappointed, but its strength lies in its music playing capabilities, and in that respect it doesn't disappoint, with nifty features such as shake controls, TrackID or FLAC support. Know Your Mobile also liked the fact that it supports 3G and push email and, although its camera and apps are poor, they are not the main focus of this phone anyway.

The Zylo holds few surprises and has nothing really in the way of design or OS that sets it aside from other similar models of the past. As this is a walkman phone it is disappointing to find poor quality earphones and no 3.5mm jack, and the music performance is a let down. As a basic phone it works well and is easy to use, the messaging is good for the non smartphone users, but there is not a lot that sells the walkman branding.

Although the Zylo is attractive and feels well constructed, it's dated when compared to some cheaper phones and for a music phone to be without a standard headphone jack is unforgivable. The plus points according to CNet are the familiar UI, radio, expandable memory and HSPA. The negatives though are lack of Wi-Fi and GPS, fiddly browser and expensive PlayNow music store.

The Zylo is small and lightweight but doesn't feel cheap thanks to its attractive design. Its main strength lies in its music player, which impressed Mobile Choice with its audio quality and ease of use. The inclusion of preloaded social networking apps was a well-received bonus in spite of their sluggishness and lack of functionality, but the camera was disappointing.

On first exploring the Zylo and realising the huge shortcomings of FLAC support, Tech Radar were expecting the review to be harsh. Regardless of the disappointment over the lossless music, it still plays various types of audio file. For the price the feature set is very good and the build quality, ease of use and social networking abilities are very positive points.