Transistor Radios Around the World

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Before '54 --- North America --- Western Europe --- Japan and Pacific --- East Europe and USSR


1960 Sony TR-620

Small shirt pocket radio, thermoplastic cabinet
3 9/16 x 2 3/8 x 1 1/8 inches / 90 x 60 x 29 mm
Six transistors (Sony), one standard 9-volt battery
Manufactured by Sony Corp., Japan

A wonderful Sony radio — so tiny without being a "micro", and such a solid and beautiful cabinet design.

In February 2017, New York's Cooper Hewett Museum put on an exhibit, "The World of Radio", showcasing radio design throughout the twentieth century. Of all the radios displayed, the only pocket transistor radio displayed was the Sony TR-620.

OK, well it's a good thing that Braun never made a pocket transistor radio, because if they had, a Braun radio almost certainly would have been the representative pocket transistor radio in the Cooper Hewett exhibition, as Braun pretty much always has been the beginning and end of radio design in the industrial design world for the past several decades.

So good for you, Cooper Hewett! It's just too bad you couldn't have chosen a more significant and representative example of a pocket transistor radio — Sony's 1958 TR-610 would be the first to come to mind here for me.

Sony TR-620

Sony TR-620



Sony TR-620

Sony TR-620

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