The Walkman Is Back—And It's Nearly the Price of Two iPhones

Nostalgia comes with a price.

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Have some extra cash left over from Christmas? Good. You just might be halfway toward picking up Sony's new luxury Walkman. You read right, a luxury Walkman. In other words: it's expensive. 

The company unveiled the new addition of the Walkman, which was a popular line of portable cassette players in the 80s, at CES in Las Vegas this week. The Walkman ZX2 has 128 GB of storage, will last 60 hours on a single charge, has a touchscreen, is Wi-Fi and Bluetooth enabled, and runs Android 4.2 Jellybean—so users can download Android apps through the Google Play Store. The music player packs a punch, but how much is it? Well, it'll cost you the same price as a 13.3" Retina MacBook Pro: $1,199.99. That's nearly the same price as two iPhone 6's, or three PlayStation 4's.

The lofty price comes from the ZX2's S-Master HX processor, which gives it high-resolution audio capabilities through DSD, WAV, AIFF and FLAC file formats. Frankly, this is a device that's meant for audiophiles who'll appreciate the extra detail. (That also means users will need headphones that support high-resolution audio.)

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The Walkman line hasn't entirely been left for dead. Sony still uses the name for its MP3 players, and on a collection of high-end devices it released last year, including the moderately priced ZX1, NWZ-WS613, and NWZ-A17. But it looks like this is Sony's attempt to resurrect the name into a high-end brand. 

There's already some competition waiting for the device. Neil Young's Pono Player offers similar features, and runs for $499.99 (it's also kind of awkward looking). Pono just launched its own dedicated music store today, and pricing for high quality music is, well, high. The deluxe edition of Led Zeppelin IV runs for $27.49. It's only $13.99 on iTunes. So if you're going to want record quality music, start saving up.

No word yet from the company when the device will be released, but it will likely be in the spring.

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