Zylo rocks to the future

It started off just like any other day. The sun shone. The birds started singing a medley of chirps. Some body starts cooking a piece of dead thing in the kitchen. But there was something different about that particular black number in the calendar: it was the day I got my first Sony Walkman tape player. It wasn’t just a slab of plastic, wires and metal. It was a wellspring of wonder. Anytime. Anyhow. Anywhere. Inside the school bus (I was in the sixth grade, I think), during recess, before PE or practical arts classes with fascistic instructors (I nearly failed practical arts; I couldn’t get myself to learn crap), secretly during the long and winding monologues of Religion teachers (who were, they insisted, infallible). As long as the batteries were undead (and cassette tape spools were untangled), there was music. Eddie Van Halen doing his volcanic solo in Eruption on the VH band’s first album. Peter Criss serenading Beth on the sequel to “KISS Alive.” And the gaggle of different singers, bands on that mix tape of mine: Keith “The Human Riff” Richards twanging the acoustic on Angie, Ronnie James Dio chronicling that one day in the Year of the Fox, and Ozzy with a mouthful of reverb detailing his Changes. When I got my other “first” Sony Walkman in the late ’80s, I listened to John Cale and Lou Reed almost exclusively. (Why two “firsts”? Well, that’s another story altogether). 

These memories came rushing back when I got hold of the Sony Ericsson Zylo Walkman mobile phone.

The first Walkman mobile phone that I had was the Sony Ericsson W890, which was a thing of beauty and toy forever.

My beef with listening to music on mobile phones is the lack of bass punch. In non-music-centric phones, it’s usually like listening to Steely Dan and bassist Chuck Rainey didn’t show up for the sessions — due to car trouble or such. Thus the tracks come across as horny as hell; I mean all horns (from Brecker, Shorter), shrill guitars (from Skunk and Carlton) and muddy low-end. No Chuck.

Two things my W980 had going for it: Clear Bass and Clear Stereo. Sony Ericsson’s Clear Bass technology provides sharp and dynamic basslines free from distortion. You could hear Jaco, Flea, Wooten, Claypool, Pino Paladino and Stanley Clarke crisply and clearly in most mobile phone music devices because their basses are upfront, but with the W980 you will be able to hear the subtler — yet not any less talented — bassists such as Donald “Duck” Dunn and Rocco Prestia of Tower of Power. The bass is essential, after all; it’s not just a four-stringed guitar.

My old Sony Ericsson was one of the items nicked when my apartment was robbed a couple of years ago. That thieving bastard must’ve enjoyed listening to Kid Charlemagne.

Instant karma’s going to get him like it has gotten me.

I now have the Zylo and it feels much like what a Walkman phone should be (although not as pricey as my lost W890 or the latest one, the W895). This is probably the Squire version of a Fender, or the Epiphone counterpart of a Gibson, but the same company is behind it so users can expect the cutting-edge in mobile phone music. It makes for an excellent first mobile; the kind that you’ll always keep harking back to, like your first Walkman cassette tape player. And listen, Ma, I could hear Bill Wyman courtesy of the Mega Bass feature.

Wait, there’s more to this sleek slider (available in Jazz Black, Cha-cha Silver or Swing Pink).

You can listen to music, audio books and Podcasts. (You might one to try the audio ruminations of Ricky Gervais, Stephen Merchant and the other guy, the bald one. I wonder if they’ve already made an audio-book version of Finnegans Wake — it’s a bitch to read, but probably bitchier to listen to.) You can add background music to an ongoing phone call, so both you and the other person on the line can hear tunes. (For example, Victims of Love, Meet Me Halfway or Somewhere Down the Road if you’re talking to STAR Lifestyle layout artist Jojo Gamboa.) You have shake control, so you could change tracks at the flick of the wrist. When you open the PlayNow application, you can download music, games, ring-tones, themes and wallpapers. You can track down that pesky title of a song you heard on the radio or from café speakers with the TrackID application, which is powered by the Gracenote music database. (Like that one time when I heard a song but I just couldn’t seem to figure out what the title or who the artist is. But the recurring lyrics were, “Down, down, down, down… [pause] down, down, down, down.” I guess it’s not Adam Lambert, the female version of Lady Gaga.) You can listen to FM Radio. (Just tune into NU 107 and leave it there for life.) You have quick access to Facebook, Twitter, Picasa, Flickr or YouTube. 

What I like about Sony Ericsson Walkman phones is that they have dedicated buttons for the music player. Users can listen to music in FLAC, MP3 or AAC formats, and change the phone’s looks (via Walkman styles).

Someone might crack, “Aren’t you reviewing a mobile phone? How does it handle calls?”

Well, it worked just fine. Voice quality, okay. Reception, okay as well. It even supports video calls.

It also has smart dialing or “Smart Search,” so it helps you when you’re on the fly and need to get a hold of someone really quick (type in a couple of digits from the phone number or letters from the name).

So, now, the thrust is to transfer a Van Halen album to my Zylo. Or the first Velvet Underground record. Depends on which Walkman history of mine we’re talking about.

Key features

• Large 2.6” 16M-color TFT screen, 240 x 320 pixels, scratch-resistant surface

• Quad-band GSM support

• Dual-band 3G with 7.2Mbps HSDPA, 2Mbps HSUPA

• 3 megapixel fixed-focus camera; VGA@24fps video recording

• FM radio with RDS

• Stereo Bluetooth 2.1

• MicroSD card slot, 260 MB internal memory

• Environment-friendly package

• Social networking integration, widget-enhanced interface

• NetFront v3.5 web browser with full Flash support

• Very good audio output quality

• Accelerometer sensor for UI auto-rotate

• Smart dialing