That's the title for an interesting experiment I recently saw at the BBC news magazine. They just did... well, it's best if I simply copy the first paragraph:

"When the Sony Walkman was launched, 30 years ago this week, it started a revolution in portable music. But how does it compare with its digital successors? The Magazine invited 13-year-old Scott Campbell to swap his iPod for a Walkman for a week."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8117619.stm

Very interesting... and funny in some moments

Good read, thanks for sharing.

My iphone broke last week, good job I still had 3 working Sony Sportsmans as backup. I've also had 2 ipods break whereas the Sony Sportsmans will out live us all

YEP---and here we are using these 20-30 year old mechanical complexities. wonder how a comparable ipod will hold up in a similiar time frame.

I read this sometime ago, I have say it wasn't a fair comparison because the walkman was from way back in 1984 ish, It would have been better if they gave the young man a sony wm-ex505. The 505 being much more compact requiring only 1 AA cell to operate it, comes loaded with facility's such as, A/rev, Blank skip, Bass boost, a much quiker FF and fast REW. However no down loadable music, he still would have favoured the Ipod, tapes are much trouble for most to deal with especially for kids of today, although my 7yr old keeps 3 of her favourites and an extra AA cell in her coat pocket, but then not everyones father is a collector of these unique pieces of mechanical art.  

i think cassettes have at least as good a sound as any ipod. who can't fall in love with a nicely working w-10---w-30 or a clean tps-l2. all mine were none functional when i bought them. they are really clean machines now and used regularly.