Thing is, with a walkman there were only so many tapes you could stuff into your pockets/bag, so you invariably had to make a choice as to what you were going to listen to while you were out, and you were stuck with that choice. With even a basic ipod now, you can decide you're in the mood for something else after all and change to that. Also, with many of them you can watch videos, if you so desire.

Not to mention that though at the time we thought they were the ultimate in compact portable music players, even the slimmest walkman could be no smaller than the tape it ran, so they were all relatively large. I remember I had a lovely silver Sanyo I think, thin and smooth, like a little cigarette case, the absolute epitome of cool. But nowadays, even the crappiest ipod or mp3 player is smaller, and certainly more functional.

I think an electronics company could create a good niche for itself making quality cassette decks. Many people still have cassettes in their collections. Often those cassettes contain songs that are no longer available in any high-quality format. It's getting harder and harder to repair old cassette decks or find decent used ones for sale - I know from experience.

Please bring back quality cassette decks
 

I like cassettes so much, I like the hiss, and the sounds of my cassettes playing in a cassette deck. Please bring back quality cassette decks and boomboxes to the production line. :)

would be awesome