The Lawspeaker
06-30-2009, 09:32 AM
13 Year Old Uses Walkman for a Week. Result: Embarrassment (http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2009/06/13-year-old-uses-walkman-for-a-week-result-embarrassment/)
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2009/06/370622288_7f737bb862_o.jpg
The BBC convinced 13 year old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman and use it for a week. The first shock came just from seeing the thing:
[My Dad] had told me it was big, but I hadn’t realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.
It gets worse from there. Wearing the 30 year old device on his belt (“it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets”) Scott felt embarrassed at the attentions of passersby as they stared and shouted insults.
Other problems included lack of a shuffle mode (“I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly”), terrible battery life (three hours), sound quality (we’d disagree — even a tape sounds better than the average MP3), and capacity (twelve tracks in your pocket!).
Scott had some operational troubles, too: “It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.” The ultimate insult comes at the end, though:
Did my dad, Alan, really ever think this was a credible piece of technology?
http://www.wired.com/images_blogs/gadgetlab/2009/06/370622288_7f737bb862_o.jpg
The BBC convinced 13 year old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman and use it for a week. The first shock came just from seeing the thing:
[My Dad] had told me it was big, but I hadn’t realised he meant THAT big. It was the size of a small book.
It gets worse from there. Wearing the 30 year old device on his belt (“it is certainly not pocket-sized, unless you have large pockets”) Scott felt embarrassed at the attentions of passersby as they stared and shouted insults.
Other problems included lack of a shuffle mode (“I managed to create an impromptu shuffle feature simply by holding down “rewind” and releasing it randomly”), terrible battery life (three hours), sound quality (we’d disagree — even a tape sounds better than the average MP3), and capacity (twelve tracks in your pocket!).
Scott had some operational troubles, too: “It took me three days to figure out that there was another side to the tape.” The ultimate insult comes at the end, though:
Did my dad, Alan, really ever think this was a credible piece of technology?