Walkman

There's often quite a price premium for folks who opt for hi-res portable audio. Indeed, the company who kicked off personal groove machines has been known to charge a small fortune – which makes the latest Walkman something of a pleasant surprise.

Sony has announced a pair of digital audio players that can stream over Wi-Fi as well as play Hi-Res stored music, boast native 11.2-MHz DSD and offer balanced and unbalanced headphone output. And one of those players is wrapped in gold-plated bling.

​Cassettes might not have the largest capacity or best sound quality, but they ooze retro appeal. Tapping into that hipster market is the Mixxtape, a portable Bluetooth music player that’s not only shaped like a cassette, it also plays in an old-school tape deck – if you still have one lying around.

The definition of "portable audio" has changed since the 80s, and the newest device to carry the Walkman brand builds the whole kit into a waterproof pair of earbuds, adding a few new features over the last model, including more storage space, dust-proofing and an Ambient Sound mode.

Sony isn't giving up on its original portable music brand – the company introduced a new high resolution digital Walkman at CES 2015 and Gizmag had the chance to test it out.

At CES 2013, Sony revealed the Walkman Sports MP3 Player, a waterproof music player built right into a pair of earbuds with no external device required.

Sony has unveiled some new Walkman media players, including a new flagship model which runs on Android 4.0 (ICS).

Sony has taken the wraps off its first Android-based Walkman media player, the Z-1000 series.

Sony has unveiled its new W Series Walkman MP3 player, which is said to be one third the size of previous models.

Sony has given a bass boost, quick charging and ZAPPIN music search to the new additions to its B-series Walkman music players.

Sony has announced a new super-slim addition to its iconic Walkman range of personal media players, the S750

Sony are set to release the new model S-Series and E-Series Walkmans, both of which feature long playback times, slim styling and - with the S-Series - built-in speakers.