This Walkman-alike is so retro it includes a pencil to rewind tricky tapes

We Are Rewind's EDITH WE-001 combines old-school looks with Bluetooth and USB-C charging

We Are Rewind EDITH WE-001
(Image credit: We Are Rewind)
Quick Summary

It looks ancient, but the EDITH WE-001 has Bluetooth for your headphones and a 12-hour rechargeable battery. It doesn't just play tapes, it can record too.

Available now, it's priced at £129 / $159 / €149.

If you know what connects a pencil to a C90 cassette tape, We Are Rewind has the perfect portable music player for you.

Its a lovingly-crafted homage to the Walkman era, and in a move that made me laugh, it comes complete with a pencil for tightening up tapes when they go a bit wonky.

It also appears to have taken its pink and green colour scheme from a 1980s tracksuit.

We Are Rewind EDITH WE-001 portable cassette player in pink and green It is on a green background with black and yellow wireless headphones resting on it and the image of a sound wave faintly visible in the background.

(Image credit: We Are Rewind)

Don't let the retro looks fool you, though. The deck comes in rugged aluminium rather than flimsy plastic, and there's some modern tech in there so you can use it with the best wireless headphones as well as old-school over-ears.

We Are Rewind also makes a suitably retro-looking pair of wireless headphones as an optional extra.

EDITH WE-001 cassette player: key features and pricing

The EDITH WE-001 cassette player dumps the double-A batteries in favour of a rechargeable internal battery, capable of delivering up to 12 hours of playback.

There's Bluetooth for your headphones, and in addition to playing cassettes, the EDITH WE-001 can record onto them too. It doesn't have its own microphone, but there's a 3.5mm input jack for an external mic or another sound source for your recording.

We Are Rewind EDITH WE-001

(Image credit: We Are Rewind)

I think the recording feature could be fun. I like the idea of hooking up a digital music source to the EDITH WE-001 and recording it onto hissy tape. It could also prove a rather colourful dictaphone for meetings.

The EDITH has a recommended retail price of £129 / $159 / €149 / about AU$268, making it a little more expensive than its closest rival, the FiiO CP13.

We Are Rewind EDITH WE-001

(Image credit: We Are Rewind)

We Are Rewind products are sold through Rough Trade, Selfridges, FNAC, Turntable Lab and independent record shops, and the EDITH WE-001 is available now alongside other colour options.

Writer, musician and broadcaster Carrie Marshall has been covering technology since 1998 and is particularly interested in how tech can help us live our best lives. Her CV is a who’s who of magazines, newspapers, websites and radio programmes ranging from T3, Techradar and MacFormat to the BBC, Sunday Post and People’s Friend. Carrie has written more than a dozen books, ghost-wrote two more and co-wrote seven more books and a Radio 2 documentary series; her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, was shortlisted for the British Book Awards. When she’s not scribbling, Carrie is the singer in Glaswegian rock band Unquiet Mind (unquietmindmusic).

You must confirm your public display name before commenting

Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.