Paul McCobb's 1955 portable radio for CBS-Columbia  

Cool story, completely...
Cool story, completely unimpressive radio design.

Speaking of radios...
Did Charles Eames really design this? It certainly makes McCobb's radio design look brilliant by comparison.
http://www.deconet.com/product/250849/Charles_Eames_6CO5_radio_by_Zenith...

original advertisment on ebay
Here is an original advertisement on Ebay.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/1955-AD-Clock-Radios-GE-General-Electric-Portabl...
this is not my auction just posting if for people to take a quick look.

Look what Artur Braun...
Look what Artur Braun designed the same year (1955)...

Eames Radios
While doing my extended research run on the McCobb radios I did run into several folks who have carefully studied and collected the various Eames radio designs, in fact it was one of these Eames radio collectors who was instrumental in my locating the McCobb press release reproduced in the recent blog article.
I personally know virtually nothing about the Eames radio designs.
I suppose the best person to ask about any Eames design would be Daniel Ostroff at the Eames Office. Drop him a line if you wish to know more.
http://www.eamesoffice.com/

Why "completely unimpressive", spacepirate?
I'm no radio buff, but it looks like a fine design to me, particularly when compared to other contemporary radios, such as those featured in the advertisement that Rozellglass posted.
Presumably a radio does more than sit on a shelf, looking pretty, though; since we don't have the advantage of using the thing, and have only appearance to go by, I'm wondering WHAT about this radio's appearance reads as "unimpressive"(?).

These early solid state...
These early solid state transistor radios that were meant to be portable and first appeared around 1954 were all essentially the same. That is to say that while being convenient, they all shared the same internal components and equally sounded like shit.
This particular McCobb design looks lazy and adds nothing new to the wide array of small radios that were already available by 1955.
In fact some of the earliest transistor radios were not only smaller but look much better than this example.

Colors
I wonder if having an option of colors was innovative.

To me, the McCobb design looks considerably more sophisticated
... than the others featured in the ad that Rozellglass posted. Straylight's all-red example looks remarkably modern.

The TR-1 was smaller and...
The TR-1 was smaller and came in many more color options.
It was sold a year before the Mccobb radio.
Second photo is an example of what Braun was doing in the mid-50s with transistor radios.
Third photo is an example of one of Sonys many offerings.

I see what you mean
The braun is so far ahead of the others, the word Ipod popped into my head when i saw it.

yup
old school ipod was what I thought as well when i saw that braun transistor

Tubes baby!
One of the interesting things about the McCobb/CBS-Columbia portable radios was that they were not transistor radios. These are remarkably small tube sets which puts a slightly different complexion on the design I think.