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- Ten to Avoid: 2005's Worst Products
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These may look shiny and sharp on the shelves, but each one is fundamentally flawed.
It's the holiday season, time to get gifts for family and friends. We bring you the best stuff year-round, but quality may be scarce this time of year. For you last-minute shoppers, here's my annual list of the year's ten worst products—as scored and reviewed by PC Magazine Labs in 2005. These may look shiny and sharp on the shelves, but each one is fundamentally flawed. You've been warned!
10. Oakley Thump: If you've overdone it with the eggnog, a $350 pair of sunglasses with a built-in MP3 player might seem a divine combination. It's not. The poorly fitting earbuds chafe, the glasses feel flimsy, and the style is dated. Avoid the first version, and be careful of the second—better, but still not great. And what happens if you want to rock out at night? Unless you're buying for Bono, pick up an iPod shuffle and a pair of Revos for less. (Though the Thump was released in 2004, we reviewed it in 2005.)
9. Voodoo Doll D210: If you give someone this zippy breadbox-sized PC, they'll be sticking pins in your effigy all year—and you'll be out more than 3,000 smackeroos, too. Voodoo crammed two CPUs and two hard drives inside, but left out the keyboard, mouse, and monitor. If you buy one anyway, get a pair of industrial-strength ear protectors too, as it whines like a 747 taxiing for takeoff.
8. H2i SimplyTouch OpticalBar: Turn any monitor into a touch screen! That's the promise; the reality is different. The OpticalBar sits atop your monitor and tracks your finger as you touch special parts of the screen. Alas, it works more slowly than the midnight shift at an all-night diner, and often gets your order wrong, too. Get a tablet notebook instead.
7. Motorola ROKR E1: The Oakley Thump of the mobile phone set; at least it's a decent phone. The hype around "The First iTunes Phone" created unfulfillable expectations. It's not as polished as an iPod, and its limited music storage makes a mediocre player even worse. Glacially slow music transfer puts the final nail in this coffin. Sony Ericsson sells a much better MP3-phone combo, but I suggest a shuffle and a RAZR phone: cheaper, and better.
6. Cinego D-1000: It slices! It dices! It projects your DVDs onto the wall! You might be tempted by this combination front-projector and DVD player, but stay away. Marred by a minuscule remote, a nasty interface, and terrible video quality, it'll soon be relegated to the garage or eBay. For budget home theater, hold out for Optoma's D10, or pick up a cheaper projector and a DVD player for less.—Continue reading...