Sony Ericsson WT12

Year: 2011
Prototype level: Cancelled
Codename: Longyan

Overview

The Sony Ericsson WT12, codenamed Longyan, was an unreleased Walkman phone developed during the final years of Sony Ericsson. Although it was assigned a WT12 model number and appears to have progressed to fully built hardware, the phone never reached commercial release. Surviving examples show a distinctive Walkman-oriented design with the Sony Ericsson and Walkman branding integrated into a compact candybar-style handset, reflecting the company’s continued experimentation with the Walkman range as it moved towards a new generation of devices.

Longyan is particularly interesting because very little documentation about the project appears to have survived. The WT12i and WT12a designations are recorded in Sony Ericsson’s internal-style model listings, confirming that Longyan was associated with both international and American variants, but there is little publicly available information describing its intended market or why the project was ultimately abandoned. The few surviving prototypes therefore provide most of the evidence that the device existed at all. With no commercial counterpart to compare it with, the WT12 is a good example of one of the lesser-known Sony Ericsson projects that disappeared before reaching the market.