Tech FAILS. What was yours?

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crackrdbycracku

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#112157 28-Nov-2012 10:27

I was reading the article below and it got me thinking of my early adoptions fails.

The best/worst one was mini-disk. I spent just over $1000 in 1998 to own a mini-system with a mini-disk recorder function and a bundled Walkman mini-disk player. Yep, just before MP3s took off.

What was yours?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2012/11/27/ten_technology_fails/

Didn't anybody tell you I was a hacker?

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#724049 28-Nov-2012 10:57

i bought a zune

NonprayingMantis

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#724053 28-Nov-2012 11:03

I was pressured into buying a chinese android tablet just as the ipad craze started. Bought it in HK whenon holiday. The spec sounded great but I couldn't really test it properly in store. It was priced the same as the ipad. (around $800 NZD)

got it back to the hotel and found it was a peice of junk, no camera (which I was assured it had) and no android market. very unresponsive, slow, just generally rubbish. by that point it was too late to take it back, not that I could have done anyway because there is no CGA or anything like that in HK

even worse, when I got back to NZ I found dozens of identical tablets selling on trademe for $250. so not only had a bought a peice of junk, I had overpaid by more than 200%

mattRSK

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#724071 28-Nov-2012 11:19

I bought a Dyson vacuum cleaner once. They are not very solid and seem to have very intricate plastic parts that tend to break.

mattgreen

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#724081 28-Nov-2012 11:34

reven: i bought a zune

People don't normally admit that ;)

freitasm

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#724084 28-Nov-2012 11:38

That list is pretty good, except PDAs don't really belong there. They weren't a failure and actually developed into a whole new class of products - the touch smartphones.

Everything else is pretty much bad and died ad well deserved death.

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muppet

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#724089 28-Nov-2012 11:40

HP Touchpad!

Though I did get it in the firesale, so I knew it wasn't going to live on.

Once I can get it away from my lovely wife I'm going to put Cyanogenmod on it.

I too was a big minidisc fan - I had two different portable players.

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Poll

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#724098 28-Nov-2012 11:47

Two of those early mp3 players, the usb flash drive sized ones with a tiny lcd and incomprehensible menu, 128 meg and 256 meg, terrible.

crackrdbycracku

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#724099 28-Nov-2012 11:47

muppet:

I too was a big minidisc fan - I had two different portable players.

Yeah, I sold the mini-system/player to someone in 2001 (a bigger fool then me?), kept a few discs and went to Japan, to teach English, where the mini-disc actually lived on. Ended up buying a portable recorder/player, renting CDs (yet, legally available at the video store) and copying them to mini-disc on my PS2.

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dclegg

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#724101 28-Nov-2012 11:47

Well, I am a PS Vita owner. But I'm not sure that counts as a fail, as it was a prize in a competition.

wellygary

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#724135 28-Nov-2012 12:25

crackrdbycracku:
muppet:

I too was a big minidisc fan - I had two different portable players.

Yeah, I sold the mini-system/player to someone in 2001 (a bigger fool then me?), kept a few discs and went to Japan, to teach English, where the mini-disc actually lived on. Ended up buying a portable recorder/player, renting CDs (yet, legally available at the video store) and copying them to mini-disc on my PS2.

FYI: There was a specific tax on Minidisc devices that had the record function, the tax was paid into some Japanese music industry slush fund - that's why it was legal to rent and copy CDs

DarthKermit

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#724277 28-Nov-2012 16:20

One that springs to mind is a Palm III. What a piece of crap that was. It ran on two AAA batteries and had volatile memory. If the batteries died, you lost all your data. Clever huh?

I think I paid $700 for it back in 1999.

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#724279 28-Nov-2012 16:22

But the Palm wasn't a fail. As a product it defined a entire new generation of products, made PDAs popular, introduced new ways of doing things. It was a success. Every PDA and Smartphone today has its roots in the PalmPilot.

I got my first PalmPilot 1000 in 1997 when first released. It was still US Robotics back then.

Did you know PayPal came out on a Palm first so you could transfer money to your friends, then put the PDA in its cradle, press the Hotsync button and have the money sent out?

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CYaBro

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#724280 28-Nov-2012 16:25

Poll: Two of those early mp3 players, the usb flash drive sized ones with a tiny lcd and incomprehensible menu, 128 meg and 256 meg, terrible.

I got one of these for my wife a few years ago and we love it.
I use it all the time when mowing the lawns and she uses it when going for a walk or run.
It's a Samsung 1GB version so can fit quite a bit of music on it and the battery lasts for ages.

Opinions are my own and not the views of my employer.

Behodar

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#724286 28-Nov-2012 16:32

I have an HD DVD player, which most people would class as a fail, although I think that picking up ~50 clearance movies at $1-2 each was a good deal overall :)

sleepy

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#724290 28-Nov-2012 16:41

Buying a new desktop pc for work with XP on it then paying extra $75 for vista upgrade when released - never installed cant think why

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