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The 1° of July of the 1979 Sony launched on the marketplace the first Walkman, the portable reader of audiocassettas which revolutionized forever the world of the music. A new way to listen our songs, the music becomes portable, small and compact.
This year it’s fourthy years since when the Walkman arrived for the first time inside the pockets of the whole world and, to celebrate this anniversary, Sony launched it on the marketplace again, with a modern interpretation.
The birth of the Walkman
Like we said it was the 1° of July of the 1979 when on the market arrived the fist Walkman, produced by Sony and created by Akio Morita, Masaru Ibuka and Kozo Osone. Quickly the japanese product get spreaded in the whole world by fully entering in the global culture and slang.
Still today, infact, we use the word walkman to speak about every cassettas’ reader, not only the one produced by Sony. Afterwards, due to the success, Sony called with the same name other products of music reproduction, even if they weren’t directly connected with the old audiocassettas.
Even if the word entered so deep in the global culture only the reader produced by Sony is really called walkman.
The first reader released by Sony was the model TPS-L2, colour blue and silver, at the price of 200 dollars. The real boom of walkman was in the ’80s, when Sony started to produce models at really lower prices.
In the 2010 the company stopped the production of the device, which was now too obsolete even for the most nostalgic ones, due to the advent of the new technologies, after sold in the world 330 millions of walkman.
The new walkman
It’s been 40 years since the release of the first walkman and 9 since the end of its production, but Sony felt a bit nostalgic in the anniversary of one of its best made products in the history.
To the IFA 2019 the company announced the launch of the new walkman, in honor of the first model, obviusly reviewed in modern style. Here you have the version 2.0 of walkman: the NW-A100TPS.
This new walkman doesn’t read the audiocassettas, but the more modern audio files (MP3, WAV, FLAC or WMA), it’s focused on Android and it has an internal memory of 16GB. Furthermore it has a wireless connection, so to use even the main music services streaming.
But, at first sight, the device really seems coming out from the ’80s. The external cover remembers the first model of reader, but it hides a display HD of 3.2 inches, to quickly flip through the songs and that allows us to see the images of the old audiocassettas while the songs are playing.
No biro pens to rewind the tape of the cassettas or stilo batteries, the remake of the device obviusly has an integrated battery, which allows about a day of listening.
The launch of the new device
The announcemnt of the walkman brought a flow of nostalgy and probably many would like to take advantage of it for a great jump into the past. Sure this jump into the past won’t be cheap. The device will cost between the 400 and the 500 dollars, in Europe its launching price is, instead, 440 euros.
The exact date of the launch isn’t been announced yet but, probably, it will be between November and December of this year. A christmas gift under the tree for the most nostalgic so.
Sony will take advantage from this jump into the past to launch even the new earpods limited edition WH-H910N over ear. The earpods over ear will be so offered together with the new walkman 2.0.
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