Must-have 1980s gadget and one-time icon of Japan electronics cool, Sony's Walkman turned 40 this year and like its now middle-aged fans, is clinging to its youth with high-tech updates.

It was clunky, with big buttons and bright colors, and in the 1980s, every kid desperately wanted one. Before there was an iPod, there was the Sony Walkman, and Tuesday marks the 35th anniversary ...

Fast forward to 2023, and the Sony Walkman is now a premium portable music player, as seen in the new NW-ZX707 (USD 899.99) and NW-A306 (USD 349.99) models.

On July 1, 1979, as the global economy suffered through the second oil shock, Sony unleashed on the world a dark-blue brick of a machine with chunky silver buttons, the Walkman TPS-L2.

But make no mistake, the Sony Walkman was an important bridge to what we've become - the Australopithecus of personal entertainment devices. Other gadgets made more money and bigger technological ...

Roll tape. Back during the late 1980s heyday of the Sony Walkman, the parent company of the Apple iPhone of the era partnered up with Tiffany & Co. to create a silver-plated version of the ...

The new players start at $1,600, and can cost as much as $3,200 for a gold-plated model. Rather than appealing to mainstream consumers, Sony's Walkman has become a niche device in recent years.

Back in 1983, Sony declared the WM-10 Super Walkman the “world’s smallest cassette player,” and promoted it with ads that appealed to the dudes and to the ladies.

That's a pretty big change from the Walkman's heyday in the 1980s and '90s when it sold for $100 to $200, but there's a good reason for that: Sony's iconic music player has evolved quite a bit ...

Sony shares dropped to 990 yen (£8.25) on the Tokyo market before recovering slightly on Monday. But this was a far cry from the peak in the share price, at 16,950 yen (£140.17) in March 2000.

More of a jogging/training companion than a digital media center, the new Sony Walkman B-series additions weigh less than an ounce (28g) and have USB pendrive-like dimensions of 3.54 x 0.91 x 0.59 ...