Worst tech of 2007
Whoa, Nellie. Before you buy this stuff, you're gonna want to see what else is out there. For example, checking our Best of 2007 lists would be a good start. Or just buying whatever else there is, as long as it's not this gear.
The bottom line: Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: This waterproof case for the iPod actually does a nice job of keeping the player dry. But probably just as important as that feature is actually being able to listen to your player, and that's where the Everki Plunge sinks. The headphone connection is iffy, and the uncomfortable, large earbuds get rusty. Donald Bell likens this case to a "step up from a sandwich bag." Maybe you should just keep your snacks in it instead. See, you don't need to listen to snacks.
We're torn: the Coby MP-C series of MP3 players looks really cute with its rounded-edge design, but that makes it really hard to use it to bludgeon yourself after you've attempted to actually use the thing. The navigation controls don't work. We were able to get sound only out of one earphone. But that didn't matter, because we couldn't figure out how to pick the song we wanted to hear, anyway. Its rating would be bumped up if it had a self-destruct button, but that button probably wouldn't work, anyway.
Imagine an FM transmitter that plugs right into your music player's headphone jack, thereby eliminating all player-specific compatibility issues. Awesome, right? Now, imagine that this transmitter had no controls to fine-tune its broadcasting signal. Useless, right? Right.
Oh, the irony. A pair of glasses designed to ease eye discomfort when you're watching videos on your portable player will instead create a pain in another section of your body entirely: your ass. They're uncomfortable, they're expensive ($218), and the video quality is terrible. Plus, Halloween's over, so the only real reason to buy these glasses--dressing up like Star Trek: The Next Generation's Geordi La Forge--is long gone.
"Mach Speed" must refer to the velocity at which the product testers signed off on this $110 MP3/PVP/DVR/camera/camcorder. Yes, you read that correctly: it's a MP3/PVP/DVR/camera/camcorder combo for just $110. Unfortunately, the audio quality is terrible, the MP3 player won't let you organize your tunes in any way, and you can never really tell if the battery's about to run out unless it actually does. Still, it does only cost $110, but that's still a chunk of change for something that doesn't do anything right.
To their defense, the Dada Footwear Code Ms probably offer the best ankle support of any MP3 player in the world. That's because they're shoes. MP3-playing shoes. With built-in, tinny speakers. And because headphone cords usually aren't long enough to extend from head to toe, they can stream audio wirelessly to the included headphones. It's hard to put these shoes on a "worst of" list due to their sheer novelty value alone, but $210 for a pair of sneakers that hold only 128MB of music is pretty pricey. And what happens if you walk through a puddle?
Ah, the good old days. Do you ever wonder how the laptops of yore might handle a processor-intensive OS such as Windows Vista Ultimate? Well, you can find out for yourself by buying this configuration of the Systemax Pursuit 4155. It comes loaded with a last-generation Intel Core Duo T2250 processor, ensuring that it will handle multitasking and multithreaded apps with the speed of molasses on turtleback. Adding to the mystery is the fact that this $999 Vista laptop has a slower, older processor than its $999 Windows XP configuration. It's not a bad laptop; this configuration is just poorly conceived for the OS that it's running.
Looks aren't everything. This laptop bag does the whole business-casual thing well, and it looks like a steal at $50. The only problem is, the bag and its straps morphed into a new, strain-induced state whenever we'd actually put a laptop in it and carry it around. It turns into a saggy, blobby excuse for a laptop bag whenever an actual laptop is put into it. We're just not sure how durable that would be over the long haul.
Shiny is good, right? Not if the shininess in question is located directly in front of a gadget's illuminated display, rendering whatever you're supposed to be reading illegible. This FM transmitter for the iPod has a reflective, mirrored surface right in front of its display, so it's perfect for illiterate narcissists. Otherwise, you'd be smart to scan store shelves for something other than the SmartScan.
If you've got a serious case of fumble-itis and only $1,600 to spend, then meet the laptop designed for you. The Ruffbook definitely is "ruff," but unfortunately, that adjective describes a bit more than its durable, drop-and-spill-resistant frame. Using its crowded keyboard is ruff. Its terrible battery life is ruff. Come to think of it, the fact that we couldn't kill it by repeatedly dropping it and spilling things on it was kind of ruff. Luckily for dumpster-divers, it's likely to withstand the shock of being dropped into the nearest garbage bin.
The concept of the $50 Griffin iKaraoke is great: a small microphone you can jack into your iPod, flip a button, and have the vocal track of whatever you're listening to drop out so that you can karaoke away. If only it actually worked. Instead, the lead vocals don't really drop out, and thanks to the loud static that booms through the line-out jack, it sounds like a fax machine trying to sing a song. We like the fact that the iKaraoke is small, if only because it makes it easier to lose.
You could argue that a mediocre product is worse than a bad product. After all, something can be so bad it's endearing. These semi-cheap MPIO MP3 players are semi-well-designed, semi-feature-packed, have semi-good battery life, and will leave you semi-enthused. We're semi-reluctant to add it to the "worst of" list, but we'll semi-get over it.
Again, here's a product that isn't all bad, but it's hampered by a lack of features for the number of dollars you need to fork over for it. The Banshee's scream-inducing $129 price tag gets you a serviceable sound system that lets you plug in any MP3 player from its headphone jack. In testing, we experienced a lot of background hiss and some crackling noises, and we wished that $129 tab included a remote control at the very least. Of course, we didn't dare mentioning that to the Banshee as it stared at us with its five, menacing speaker-eyeballs. The Banshee does not blink.
There's a joke in there somewhere about a product on our worst of the year list having "Genius" in its title, but in this case, there is a bit of genius in these speakers. Namely, they can be powered either by batteries or via a USB connection, which is a rarity for inexpensive speakers. Alas, they might as well offer the choice of being powered by kerosene or static electricity, because the sound coming out of them is weaker and thinner than Olive Oyl after a heroin binge.
