Sony Ericsson has just revamped their Walkman line up with two new Walkman-phones (Walkmen?), the Zylo and Spiro, that put a premium on mobile music. The phone part is pretty average, with 3G (2G only for the Spiro) connectivity, Bluetooth, and social networking features built-in, but as is expected on a Walkman-branded phone, the highlight is on the music features. For starters, the Zylo is the first Walkman handset to support Sony’s HD-FLAC format for better audio quality over MP3. According to Sony Ericsson—who has come up with quite a number of music phones through the years—the Zylo packs the best sound quality ever on a mobile phone.
FLAC is a lossless audio format, which means that it doesn’t lose quality that you’d normally get from a compressed MP3 file. The Zylo also comes with a pretty unique—if not downright clever—feature that allows you to play audio clips while talking to someone. This could be used as a way to share a new song during a phone call. Or you can use it to lie. See, the phone also comes with preloaded background sounds, like street noises and the buzz of people dining at a restaurant, meant for use during phone calls. That’ll help make your “I’m on my way” alibi more believable when you’re actually still in the shower.
The Zylo also comes with TrackID that’ll help you identify music tracks that you might hear playing in a diner, access to the PlayNow music store, apps for Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Picasa and YouTube access, Sony’s SensMe playlist sorter, and Shake control for gesture-based track skips.
The rest of the Zylo’s spec is pretty decent for a low- to mid-range handset, including a 2.6-inch display, 3G, Bluetooth and GPS connectivity, microSD card slot for storage, FM Radio, and a 3.2MP cam with Geotagging and videocall support.
The Spiro is a more basic handset that drops the 3G connection, FLAC support, and the ambient sound feature, but it’s still a Walkman phone that comes with TrackID, MP3 and AAC support, and social networking apps. The compact slider also comes with a smaller 2.2-inch screen, and a more basic 2MP cam to keep the price down.
Pricing and availability for both phones haven’t been announced.
Tags: Mobile Phones, Music Phones, Sony Ericcson, Sony Ericsson Walkman, Walkman
