Kid Uses Walkman For A Week, Misses iPod Dearly

It's somewhat hard to believe, but Sony's iconic and downright legendary Walkman turned 30 this year. Three decades ago, Sony's craftsmanship propelled a bulky, one-trick audio player onto the portable scene, sparking a revolution that continues today. But 30 years after its introduction, the original Walkman has little revlence in the world of iPods and other MP3 players. In order to prove such a fact, the BBC decided to give a 13 year old Briton a Walkman cassette player for a week instead of an iPod.


The story that ensued is one of the more hilarious that we've seen. Even for an adept teenage boy, he was baffled by some of the peculiarities. For instance, he mistook the normal/metal switch for an equalizer, and he was appaled by the incredibly brief 3 hour battery life. It also took 3 days for him to realize that tapes have two sides, and the only "Shuffle" feature he could find involved mashing the rewind button and letting go at a random point.


Amazingly, he did find aspects of the Walkman that were superior to Apple's iPod. For instance, the Walkman was equipped with two headphone jacks, and there was also a built-in AC adapter for plugging it in while near an AC outlet. Still, the terrible audio quality and giant size made the Walkman somewhat of an embarrassment to use in public, but we'd recommend giving the Via link a look for the full story. Better still, why not give your own kid your Walkman for a week and see how he/she fares?