Sony Ericsson has announced a pair of new smartphones, the Mix Walkman and txt pro.
The Mix Walkman is, unsurprisingly, a music-focused handset with features that include a karaoke function which when activated automatically lowers the vocal on any track so you can sing along (Lord preserve us).
There’s also a “Zappin” key (as seen on other Sony music players) which unfortunately doesn’t pulse out a laser beam to strike down friends making a very bad job of karaoke, but rather plays a preview of the chorus of the next song up when pressed.
You can then decide whether you want to listen to it. Not exactly revolutionary, but we guess you might find a use for it.
The Mix Walkman’s specs comprise of a 3 inch 400×240 display, a 3.2 megapixel camera, a microSD slot, bluetooth and wi-fi, plus of course a media player and other integrated apps such as Facebook.
The Sony Ericsson txt pro, as the name suggests, is just the right handset for avid texters who can’t be bothered with capital letters.
Basically, it’s got the same specification as the Mix Walkman, more or less, but with a full slide-out Qwerty keyboard for nippy messaging.
Sony Ericsson’s Global Product Marketing Manager, Quentin Cordier, commented: “We wanted to take advantage of our extensive Facebook fan base when announcing these phones, bringing the fans closer to both our products and brand.”
“We are really pleased that consumers liked them for their music and social media functionality and expect them to become great additions to our overall portfolio of entertaining phones.”
Both handsets are set for a third quarter launch, although there are no pricing details as yet. We’d expect they’ll be competitively pitched.