Sony Walkman WM-FX290W * Fully Serviced * New Belts

The last Sony Walkman, at least selling in the US. Comes in two versions, the WM-FX290W came with a radio tuner that could receive also TV & Weather bands. Translucent backdoor.

The WM-FX290 is a stereo radio cassette player Walkman manufactured by the Sony Corporation in 2004. There were two versions of this, the WM-FX290 has the AM/FM radio tuner; however another version, WM-FX290W, came with a radio tuner that could receive TV and Weather bands. It usually had logo markings in red when it was able to receive those bands. This model does not have auto-reverse, and was for the budget end of the market. Consequently it is very light with a plastic case, and mass 130 g. They were manufactured in large numbers at one time, and in February 2004, they revised this version for the Canadian market. It usually came with the MDR-023 headphones, which provided a good dynamic frequency response; however, the sound quality was average compared to the WM-EX610 and the higher end Walkmans.

The power consumption was very good and you could expect up to 35-hours of use from a single AA battery. This is an interesting Walkman design, as it has some new and unique features and therefore ideal for the Walkman collector or anyone who just wishes to buy it as a curiosity. On eBay, you could expect to pay around £5 for the Walkman alone. If it is still with its packaging, then I have seen prices of around £20 and more as they are starting to become rare. It has a good push-button assembly, and the tape transport mechanism consists of metal components, which should last.

The radio can store 40 stations consisting of seven stations for TV, four for the Weather Band (WB), 24 FM stations, and 5 AM stations. If the version was without TV or WB, then the 40 station presets divide amongst FM and AM bands. The LCD provided a flashing symbol when the digital auto preset scanning was in progress.

The exterior design has a futuristic look to it, with an interesting LCD bezel shape and rubber membrane buttons. The LCD is clear and has alphanumeric display capability, including symbols for indicating the battery level, which is very useful. The buttons are slightly recessed, and there is a lot of attention to detail in the design of this Walkman.

On the WM-FX290W the FM button was used for selecting the weather bands, however when you look at the inside of this Walkman and the PCB markings, it is apparent that they used the same PCB for both versions of the Walkman, with the main difference being in the firmware. This is a lovely bit of engineering and a piece of history.

The Sony WM-FX290 uses the most advanced electronic engineering in its circuitry and manufacturing. This model has an LCD readout driven directly by a microcontroller chip. From the PCB markings there were many versions made, including a version for Canada. Notice the surface-mount device (SMD) switch marked TV / WB, even though this particular version does not have TV or Weather Band (WB) reception. However, the Sony WM-FX290W has that capability and they used the same PCB for that model as well.