3. Nokia 770 And Sony Mylo Features: A Discussion

• 770 Internet Tablet...
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The Mylo is lighter and smaller than the 770. Its screen is significantly smaller than the 770's. Being nearsighted, I find the 770's larger, higher res screen easy to use. I haven't seen text or graphics on the Mylo, but my guess is that it's going to be tough for the farsighted to make out what's going on and we nearsighted folk are probably going to have some problems as well.

Inserting a Sony Memory Stick Pro Duo card into the Mylo

Compared to the 770, the Mylo provides more built-in memory 192 MB as opposed to 1 GB. It also supports more plug-in memory with its Memory Stick Pro Duo capability.

Sony hasn't identified the Mylo's operating system other than to say it will use a Linux system. Rumor has it that the OS is Wind River Embedded Linux. Also rumored, application development will done with Trolltech's Qtopia Development Platform.

Trolltech's Qtopia development platform runs on top of an embedded Linux operating system.

Sony hasn't released information on every piece of software to be included with the Mylo. So, take the Main Applications section with a grain of salt.

Overall, the Mylo supports far fewer image, audio and video file types than the 770. Fortunately, Sony covers MP3 and WMA audio formats in addition to its proprietary ATRAC format. JPEG is the most popular image format, especially for photos from digital cameras, so lack of support for all of the other formats isn't a real problem, given the audience for this device. On the video front, it's too bad Sony didn't cover anything other than MPEG-4. I would have like to have seen at least AVI and H.263.

Unlike Nokia's 770, the Mylo has no 802.11g or Bluetooth capabilities. Right now, 802.11g is overkill given the speed of most Internet connections. Also, Bluetooth has less utility in a device like this and can lead to much faster battery drain, if left on when not in use, as many novice users do.

The Mylo has a hardware keyboard. Its display is not touch sensitive, so there is no stylus. Battery life looks better than the with 770, but that is something that will need testing.