WM-F2

The early Walkman models could only play the tapes you carried, which felt limiting in a country where FM culture shaped daily listening. The WM-F2 expanded the idea of portable audio by combining a cassette player with a high-sensitivity radio tuner.

It turned the slim WM-2 layout into a device that could play tapes, receive live broadcasts, and record directly from the air. Mechanically, the WM-F2 stayed close to the mid-period Walkman formula.

It used a belt-driven transport, ran on AA batteries, and relied on simple analog controls. The added tuner made it slightly heavier than a playback-only unit, but it still fit easily in a coat pocket.

Its design introduced the F-prefix that later defined a long-running family of radio-equipped portables. While it lacked Dolby noise reduction and tape-type selection, its simplicity made it dependable.