It’s the electrical equivalent of the Raspberries: the 10 most disappointing gadgets of 2010, as rated (or in many cases, panned) by the gadget experts here at Electricpig. Read on and see what they are!
It’s worth stressing that this isn’t a list of the worst gadgets of 2010, although the new Apple TV and Next Android tablet would easily make that too. These are the gadgets that promised the world, and didn’t quite deliver on those expectations. Of course, we’re not autocrats, and you’re entitled to your opinion too: tell us which gizmos we’ve missed off below in the comments!
iPhone 4
Now before you jump down our throats, hear us out: the iPhone 4 is fantastic. it’s the best mobile of 2010, but its Achilles’ heel – that infamous death grip – that drops calls is its only failing. What could iPhone haters have latched onto if not that? There is almost nothing else wrong with it.
Apple’s handling of the situation didn’t help matters. All it had to do was say that overall, iPhone 4 reception is better, but it has a bigger weakspot than previous models. But it didn’t quite join those dots, instead leaving a lot of customers angry and confused.
Apple TV
The new Apple TV has so much potential, it hurts: it’s tiny, cheap at £99, beautiful and dead quiet. But Apple has utterly failed to capitalise on it, actually stripping out features from the original Apple TV. In the UK at least, there’s nothing to watch, and no sign of that changing any time soon.
Puma Phone
Sagem’s fashion phone collaboration put a big smile on our face at Mobile World Congress way back in February, with its silly messages, fitness apps and solar panel. In the end though, it was only the packaging that proved remotely entertaining: the browser was busted, the solar panel didn’t work, and the touchscreen was about as finger friendly as soup.
BlackBerry Torch 9800
RIM execs talked up BlackBerry 6 far too much, calling it a leap beyond the competition. This was out and out false, but the new operating system wasn’t the big let down for the BlackBerry Torch 9800 slider: it was the combination of huge girth and a low-res screen from 2007 that consigned this one to the dustbin of history.
Nokia N8
Although we actually quite liked the Nokia N8, thanks to its astounding camera and fun extra features, this was Nokia’s opportunity to show why it deserved to be the world’s number one phone manufacturer, after the disastrous N97 in 2009, and it completely failed to deliver on the UI. Symbian 3 is a vast improvement over S60 for touchscreen phones, but it’s still unpleasant to use, with screen flashes and a ropey keyboard. As we said in our review, why should your non-geek customer have to put up with this when for the same price you could have an iPhone or HTC Desire? We’re still not sure.
Next Android tablet
One of the first high street Android tablets to appear on UK shelves in the run up to Christmas turned out to be a frustrating and utterly maddening experience, as you can see here. If we were president of the world, we’d ban resistive touchscreens for ever and imprison executives of companies still using them.
Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
Given Sony Ericsson chose to announce this phone six months before launch, it’s no wonder it failed to live up to the hype: its first foray into Android – and only its third true smartphone – arrived rocking a version of Android that was well out of date (1.6), and had no multitouch gestures.
iPod nano 6G
We always dreamed of an iPod nano with a touchscreen, but well, we also imagined it running iOS. Apple’s latest revision of its most popular iPod ever adds a 1.54-inch touchscreen, which is certainly easy to use, and looks the part. The problem is, video is now out, and it’s not any cheaper: as we said in our review, you’re essentially playing a £100 mark up over the shuffle for the privilege of choosing an exact track rather than a playlist. Also, it doesn’t come with headphones sporting an inline remote. What’s up with that?
PlayStation Move
Sony’s much hyped motion controller works. In certain scenarios and contexts, it’s much more accurate than Kinect for Xbox 360, and we’d say its its equal when it comes to multiplayer potential. But Sony completely failed to deliver on a solid launch line up of PS3 Move games, and there’s no sense of a vanguard arriving anytime soon either. Only Sports Champions will keep you coming back again and again.
Palm Pre Plus
We honestly love webOS, we really do. And at £100, the Palm Pixi Plus is staggeringly good value. But the second edition Pre brought little new to the table. It’s as though Palm’s engineer’s, knackered after creating a new phone and OS, simply decided to shove a bit more RAM in when price fell and knocked off for a year. Bad battery life and a shaky sliding mechanism meant the Palm Pre Plus could never compete with this year’s iPhone and top end Android blowers.
