My Dad Is Cooler Than Me...

Some of you noticed in yesterday's post that I was importing songs into my Dad's mp3 player. My mom actually got it for him for Christmas.

It's a Phillips GoGear 6 GB mp3 player, and it's awesome. I know, I know...you all think it's ridiculous that I would like something that only has 6 GB, but let me tell you what's up with this thing. Here's why I love it:

SOUND QUALITY: The buds that came with this thing sound 15 times better than iPod buds. (I know, I know...all of you bought E5 in-ear setups for your iPod and everybody who's anybody knows that the standard buds from Apple are horrible. But for a guy like my dad who barely understands the ideas behind earbuds and who's NOT going to rush out and spend hundreds of dollars on them, these Phillips buds kick tail.

EASE OF USE: Listen, all you with iPods...we got done wrong. After putting songs into this the Phillips mp3 player, importing tunes into an iPod is like trying to reconfigure the orbit path of the space shuttle. Yeah, I said it! You may not dig Media Player, but in my opinion its way easier when it comes to flying tunes into a personal listening device. Sure, iTunes is slicker and smoother to operate as a player, but for importing, my money's on the Windows stuff. In addition, this Phillips thing is a bit easier to navigate once you're holding it. Granted, my experience with the iPod helped out here - it took my Dad about thirty minutes to figure out how to scroll, change tunes, etc., but the Phillips GoGear has a few actual buttons on it. For a guy like my father, it's nice to know there's an actual volume control on the side that's much more familiar to him.

It may seem like I'm on an anti-Apple kick. I promise I'm not. I've just been really surprised at how easy and nice its been using Windows for an mp3 player. For the past three or four years, the culture's been telling me that Windows is out of date, not made for "artists" and that Apple knows what the hip, young consumer wants.

Is it possible that culture has been lying to me?