After getting a basketful of XPERIA and Vivaz smartphones early this year, the Japanese-Swedish mobile phone maker surprised many by resurrecting what it had thought to be a dead and gone brand – the Walkman handsets.

Six months of absence in the market can be a death knell for brands in the mobile phone markets. Not that the brand has any lasting legacy other than introducing the music phone category in the market, as other phone brands have been quick to take on the category with better models, it’s still refreshing with a hint of nostalgia to see them alive a kicking after all this time.

But the “W” line seems history now as the new handsets carry the new product branding strategy with names like Zylo and Spiro with the Walkman name spelled out in the suffix. So now you have the Sony Ericsson Zylo Walkman, a mid-tier feature phone that is supposed to carry the Walkman tradition.

Middle of the Road

With its slider closed, it measures 103 x 52 x 11.5 (16) mm and weighs a reasonably light 115 g. The Zylo is a 3G feature phone on the dual band UMTS (900/ 2100) and a quad band GSM (850/ 900/ 1800/ 1900) radio on the 2G network, It has data connectivity support with Class 10 GPRS/EDGE for data speeds up to 236.8 Kbps on 2G and HSDPA at 7.2 Mbps and HSUPA at 2.0 MBps on 3G.

It loses hotspot support as it has no WiFi typical of mid-priced handsets. There’s also no SatNav functionality. But it has local high speed data connectivity via Bluetooth 2.1 with A2DP ad microUSB 2.0 for wireless and wired data transfers, respectively.

Imaging gets a standard 3.2 megapixel resolution with geo tagging and video calling but enjoys no LED flash or autofocus which is also typical of average mid-tier handsets. Video capture is supported but not detailed. Your images get displayed on an average 2.6-inch TFT LCD display with QVGA resolution and 256k colors which come with a scratch resistant surface and an accelerometer for auto rotate viewing.

Onboard memory gets a decent 260 MB with microSD external memory support for up to 16 GB. It has a standard Li-Ion batter that yields a flimsy 4 hours of talk time on 2G and 340 hours on standby time.

Walkman Features

For a music phone, the Sony Ericsson Zylo carries no 3.5mm headphone which makes the Walkman designation a disappointment. It’s really amazing how any phone maker can still call a device a music phone without one, expecting the users to be a slave to their proprietary earphones that are often less than what a high fidelity headphone can do.

While it has A2DP profile support for wireless stereo listening, that’s an added expense unless the maker bundles the handset with a Bluetooth stereo earphone. And the quality of music reproduction still pales in comparison with the best wired headphones in the market.

Its ability to play lossless FLAC music files is totally negated by its inability to be used with high fidelity wired headset. But no matter, it’s just another capable music phone that should appeal to a market that wants to have music on the road even on proprietary earphones while surfing on fast 3G data plans. Visit Moby1 to find the best Sony Zylo contracts or read some more Sony Ericsson Zylo reviews. Moby1 is also a good place to find up to the minute mobile phone news for new phones.

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