New Sony A and ZX Walkmans Coming (Update 5)

Finally some good news for Walkman fans, Sony has 2 new models lined up, an A-Series and a ZX-Series. The two Walkmans just appeared on the FCC, YY1301B1 (A) and YY1302B2 (ZX).

Details are limited, but both players will run Android and feature 2.4/5.0Ghz Wifi and Bluetooth. I cannot find any mention of LE Audio in the filing, so either this is coming later or it has been excluded from the filing. We need to wait for the Bluetooth SIG certification to see if LE audio support is included.

Update 5:

Both the A300 and ZX700 passed through Malaysia's E-ComM certification site last week.

For comparison, the new WM1 mark 2 models (YY1298B and YY1299B), passed through E-ComM on November 29 2021. Those WM1 press reveal was on February 8th, so 71 days from appearance to announcement. If we add 71 days to the December 22 date, we get March 3 2023 as a possible press reveal date. Short term confidentiality ends on March 27 2023, so Sony announcing these in early March is very possible.

Update 4: 

Quick update again, Sony removed the original label drawings which I have used in this post and replaced them with some generic looking label drawings, dated 20221014.

Moving on, I was looking at the NW-A300 and NW-ZX700 listing again, and I noticed one small detail I missed earlier. There appears to be wireless adapter information in the listing, the WCN3950.

This page has the chipsets which seem to use this adapter. We can see the QCS2290 that will be used in the NW-A300, but there is no SDA660 which I thought could be used in the ZX700. So perhaps this is not the chipset being used. So perhaps Sony will use the QCM4290 or QCS4290 chipset, it is an octa core and up to 2.0Ghz. Sony could easily have 4 cores at 1.8 and the rest at 2.0Ghz. The SM4250 only goes up to 1.8Ghz, so I doubt it is this one. Another option is the QCS6125/QCM6125, which are the Snapdragon 600 line. The other 2 options are the Snapdragon 662 (SM6115) or the Snapdragon 680 (SM6225). I compared the chipsets on Geekbench to the ZX700, and it looks like the SM6115 or Snapdragon 662 matches the benchmarks. But that does not confirm it will be these chips.

Finally, both the A and ZX seem to have had their designs finalized in March of this year according to the FCC filing, as both devices had their "Schematic diagram and Block" finalized on March 14th.

Finally both appeared on Geekbench again 2 days ago, A300, ZX700. 

Update 3:

The ZX700 has appeared on Korea's FCC. Place of production is China.

 Update 2:

The new A-Series has finally shown up on Bluetooth SIG.

The new model has been certified with Bluetooth 5.0, and not 5.2, so unless it is re-certified, there will be no LE Audio support by the looks of it. The certification also confirms the Qualcomm SoC, while not specifically the QCS2290, it is in the list. Anyways, an interesting note is the Design Description, "Bluetooth technology platform for YY130x series". Hmm while I doubt that the ZX uses the same chip since the benchmarks are higher, it begs the question, why does it say YY130x series? Anyways, I hope the ZX will show up on Bluetooth SIG soon, it would help with identifying the SoC used.

Update:

Both the new A-series and ZX-Series have been found listed on Geekbench (thanks anonymous). Recall the previous A100 and ZX500 both used the same processor, the i.MX 8M Mini Quad. Well it appears Sony has decided to move to Qualcomm SoCs for this generation. The NW-A300 uses a 4 core chip, rated at 2.00 Ghz and with 4GB of ram, and the ZX700 uses an 8 core chip (4x1.8 Ghz, 4x2.0 Ghz) also with 4GB of ram. Both are running Android 12, special Sony edition (see below). I did mention in the original post of Qualcomm software being used for testing, I assumed it may have been just a Qualcomm Chip embedded into an SoC, but it seems Sony opted for full Qualcomm SoCs now, which means aptX should be onboard.

The A-series appeared on Geekbench as far back as early March of this year, so Sony has been developing the new model for a while now. The other entries are May 5th, June 6th, July 29th, and October 25th and 28th. The Geekbench entry does not reveal the actual chip, apart from the cores, ram and frequencies (see above), but we have a gfxbench entry which reveals a lot more details.

The entry is from late October, so recent; it reveals the screen resolution, 1280x720, and the size, 3.6". The chip is a 4 core, 2 Ghz/core and the GPU is the Qualcomm Adreno 702. This is not part of the Snapdragon lineup, instead using one of Qualcomm's Application processors, the QCS2290. The SoC is built on a 11nm process which is superior to the i.MX 8M Mini Quad in the A100, which was on 28nm process from what I can find online. This should bring much improved battery life for the new A300. 

One issue I can see is the Bluetooth connectivity, the Qualcomm website only shows version 5.0, so I do not see LE Audio working on the new model, since it requires version 5.2. Hopefully this can be fixed in the future with firmware. Although to get the best sound quality, I would think users would opt for a wired connection than wireless.

 

To see the A300 Geekbench scores, click here. For a quick comparison with the A100, click here.

Moving onto the NW-ZX707, we have only the Geekbench information for now, 8 core, with 4 cores at 2.0 Ghz, and 4 cores at 1.8 Ghz. Similar appearance in the benchmarks like the A300, early March, then May, June, late July and finally late October. The results can be found here. The scores are significantly better than the A300, with almost 2x the score in single-core and 2.5x in multi-core. My guess is the SoC being used in the ZX-series could be the Qualcomm SDA660, mostly because it is an 8 core SoC, with 4 cores up to 2.2 Ghz and 4 cores up to 1.8 Ghz. If this is the case, the GPU is slightly slower than the 702 in the A300 but the SoC is faster, due to the custom Qualcomm Kryo cores. There is a chance Sony might use the QCS8250 and just keep the core frequencies lower to save on battery. Once we get a gfxbench score, we will now for certain.

Also bot the new A-Series and new ZX-Series appeared on the Canadian certification sites a few weeks back.

A-Series

Beginning with the A-series (YY1301B), the design seems to be similar to the older A100 Series, but with perhaps some design updates like the rear ribbed panel. But looking internally and comparing to the older model, it appears there are more changes under the hood. I have no idea what the yellow pieces are on the bottom in the photos, perhaps just some tape for protection. The model name is NW-A306 according to the PDF document. So, does this mean a NW-A305 and NW-A307 are also going to be made?

Notice there is no NFC logo on the rear cover (see below) like in the current model, so perhaps there is no more NFC. This makes sense as Sony has removed NFC from all of their new wireless headsets.
 

Comparing to the current NW-A105 inside. There are definitely changes happening underneath the hood.

Source: https://postrepair.net/repair-results/nw-a105_water-damage_200930/

An interesting detail from the filing is that Pegatron is mentioned a few times, so perhaps they are building it for Sony. The box shows the player is Made in China.

Specifications are not fully revealed by here is what is known:

• Battery capacity 1500mAh 3.7V
• Android OS (version not specified)
  
• 32GB capacity ~ 18GB available for use
  
• 2.4 Ghz 802.11b/g/n
• 5.0 Ghz 802.11b/g/n/ac
• Bluetooth BDR +EDR; BLE
• Supported formats 
• MP3
• LDAC
• aptX HD
  
• WMA
• AAC
• FLAC
• WAV
• HE-AAC
• Apple Lossless
• AIFF
• DSD
• MQA
• APE 
• Packaging has no plastic in it, like all new Sony Audio products
  

There is mention of "Qualcomm® Radio Control Toolkit v4.0" for Bluetooth testing, so if this new model is using a Qualcomm chip is unknown but the previous Sony Walkmans used a Murata 1PJ, which employed a Qualcomm chip in it, so we may have a similar situation here.

ZX-Series

Finally onto the ZX-Series (YY1302B). The model name is revealed, NW-ZX707. There appears to be only one model with 64GB capacity. Perhaps Europe or more likely Asia will get maybe a higher capacity version and more colours.

Here is a photo of the box art from the filing. Rather shocked it was there, oops. Wonder if this will be removed once I post this up. Sony did remove the WH-C520 photo from that filing. Hello, Sony, if you wish to send me a NW-ZX707 for testing, more than obliged to test it before release :D.

 

Here is a comparison with the current ZX507, the angles are not 100% identical but the differences in design are very obvious. The design is less rounded now, the engraved balanced logo from the top is now gone, but perhaps will be there on the production model. Likewise the Walkman logo has disappeared from the front. The design looks more premium but will it be comfortable to hold with the sharper and straight edges?

Just like the new A-Series, the new ZX will also use Android for the OS and have the same 1500mAh 3.7V internal battery. WiFi and Bluetooth specifications are identical, meaning the main wireless chip is shared between the 2 models like previously.  The ZX filing does mention Bluetooth v4.0, but I suspect the new models will both have at least version 5.0, if not 5.2 for LE Audio support. It would be rather silly of Sony not to support LE Audio here.

Now for some photos, they are not great but do give some idea of the design.

There is no NFC pad on the back metal plate like in the NW-ZX507, so like the new A-Series, I do not expect any NFC here either.  Below is a comparison of the back plate on the current ZX507.

In the second photo earlier, we know the device will have the internal ram supplied by Micron, rated at 32Gb, which is 4GB, the same as in the current ZX507. The internal memory storage is supplied by Samsung, 64GB. Previously Sony used SK Hynix for the memory. 

The battery capacity has not changed from the ZX507, both have the same 1500mAh 3.7V battery. Hopefully battery life is improved with the use of more power efficient components. The usable storage is approximately 47GB. The codec support is identical to the new A-Series.

Both models have their short term confidentiality ending on March 27th 2023, and their certification valid from March 31, 2023. So whether this means that both can only go on sale after this date, then we would be looking at an announcement in early 2023. But I hope this is not the case.

The current models were released in September 2019, so a good 3 years ago, but if we have to wait until early 2023 for the new models, this would suck. But the previous models showed up on the FCC about 1 month before their debut, so perhaps a similar situation here. Fingers crossed

Regardless, these two new models are coming, so for those eagerly waiting, you need to wait a bit more. I suspect colours options for the new A-Series will be similar to the current model, and the ZX maybe coming in black, with silver for Asia. Personally I would love to see the new A and ZX adopt the colours from the new headsets, black and platinum. Pricing while unknown, I feel will be higher due to the higher price of components currently.

Anyways, I am happy to see Sony is still keeping their A and ZX line, would love to see a lower/mid level model, S-Series, but I doubt it.