Sony has been giving broad hints of a revival of the Walkman brand long before CES, but nothing could prepare us for the shocker when it actually did happen. Costing almost as much as a new motorcycle here, the Walkman NW-ZX2 is targeted strictly at the audiophile, the kind of people who still argue the merits of vinyl and won’t flinch at spending a small fortune on speaker cables. If you’re satisfied with your iPod and haven’t heard of FLAC till now, you probably shouldn’t read further. This thing costs $1200.
So what does the Walkman NW-ZX2 offer for that kind of money? Aside from the iconic brand name and same robust file support, the NW-ZX2 comes with 128GB of onboard storage, a microSD slot, and a lovely touchscreen display. File support includes DSD, WAV, AIFF, FLAC, Apple Lossless, and a lot more, and it runs Android Kit-Kat. It supports Bluetooth for wireless streaming and NFC for one-touch connection to speakers and headphones. It will also have a battery life of 60 hours, so we won’t be stuck for something to listen to once our smartphones run out of juice.
The new Walkman NW-ZX2 will go on sale in Europe mid-2015 and Sony is taking pre-orders already. How many can it sell? Our guess is as good as yours.
