Weekend Open Forum: What were some gadgets that didn't get the recognition they deserved?

[Jos]

In general terms consumers do a good job of weeding out the good from the bad by putting their support behind one product or another with their hard earned dollars. But every once in a while some interesting technology will suffer what feels like a premature death because, be it poor execution, bad timing or whatever, it wasn’t able to get off the ground quickly enough.

For this week's open forum we want to hear what were some great gadgets or technologies that went belly up because they didn't get the recognition they deserved? To throw in a few suggestions: Dreamcast? Apple Newton? Palm Pre? The miniDisc was awesome before the iPod arrived, or was it just me?

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https://www.techspot.com/news/60048-weekend-open-forum-great-gadgets-died-soon.html

 

[davislane1]

Off the top of my head:

Dreamcast

Game Cube

Blackberry post-iPhone

 

[CrisisDog]

MiniDisc was awesome. I replaced the receiver in my car with a Sony model that had one built in, worked a lot better than CDs. And I still love the Dreamcast. *Broadband adapter*. Many evenings spent playing Phantasy Star Online and Quake III Arena. I have two in my closet, need to bring them out at some point to show my kids.

 

[psycros]

Creative Nomad Jukebox. 20gb (!!!) of music in a hard-drive based portable music player nearly a YEAR before the iPod arrived. Hampered by clunky PC software and relatively high price, promotion was virtually non-existent (typical Creative Labs). Seemed like a bargain once Apple got into the game but received minimal support from Creative who never regained its early lead in MP3 players.

Palm Centro: a dirt-cheap Palm smartphone with almost Nokia-level toughness and battery life. At the time it had the largest collection of mobile apps by far.

Sega Nomad: blew the socks off the GBC, nicer controls, the games were fantastic but far too few.

 

[rvnwlfdroid]

The one that comes to mind is the Space Orb 360. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SpaceOrb_360
One of the best (after the learning curve) controllers I ever owned.

 

[TomSEA]

Betamax. Much better quality (and smaller) than VHS, but Sony - as per usual in their arrogance - tried to dictate this as an industry standard and it backfired. Wasn't long before VHS took over and Betamax was left in the dust and eventually discontinued.

 

[TadMSTR]

Sega Nomad: blew the socks off the GBC, nicer controls, the games were fantastic but far too few.

Best part of the Nomad was not having to buy new games as it took regular Genesis cartridges.

 

[TadMSTR]

Sega Nomad: blew the socks off the GBC, nicer controls, the games were fantastic but far too few.

Best part of the Nomad was not having to buy new games as it took regular Genesis cartridges.

Oh you meant Game Gear, not the Nomad.

 

[Tgard]

Years ago, I bought my wife a Creative Zen (just Zen, not X-Fi or anything) 8 GB media player and it also would use a SD card for more storage. Screen was a marvel at the time (I think wxga or something like that) and the picture and sound was way better than my son's ipod. I believe this was a successor to the Nomad if I remember correctly. Was just a great media player with music sounding incredible and you could actually stand to watch a movie on the screen because the picture was beautiful. Hate Creative lost the fight against apple and stopped making these media players. Lasted for about 4 years and she used it at work for 8 hours 6 days a week before it finally gave up the ghost. Way under-rated media player, but what else would you expect from Creative.

 

[BigglesKDH]

Betamax. Much better quality (and smaller) than VHS, but Sony - as per usual in their arrogance - tried to dictate this as an industry standard and it backfired. Wasn't long before VHS took over and Betamax was left in the dust and eventually discontinued.

Betamax failed because they wouldn't allow porn and VHS would.

 

[Guest]

Actually he means the nomad google nomad the game gear played smaller cartridges and had its own library unlike the nomad witch didn't have its own library

 

[TomSEA]

Betamax. Much better quality (and smaller) than VHS, but Sony - as per usual in their arrogance - tried to dictate this as an industry standard and it backfired. Wasn't long before VHS took over and Betamax was left in the dust and eventually discontinued.

Betamax failed because they wouldn't allow porn and VHS would.

Well, I didn't really want to bring that up.

 

[Guest]

Minidisc and gamegear were far ahead of the competition, I still use a portable minidisk player and use to buy gamegears to fit them with led's as backlighting... Good days

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

Betamax. Much better quality (and smaller) than VHS, but Sony - as per usual in their arrogance - tried to dictate this as an industry standard and it backfired. Wasn't long before VHS took over and Betamax was left in the dust and eventually discontinued.

Betamax failed because they wouldn't allow porn and VHS would.

Well, I didn't really want to bring that up.

You couldn't watch porn on Betamax? That's news to me. I can clearly remember watching porn on Betamax back in the 80's

 

[Skidmarksdeluxe]

The suicide nets around Foxconn's buildings. They weren't hi-tech but they did the job admirably.

 

[Tekkaraiden]

Betamax. Much better quality (and smaller) than VHS, but Sony - as per usual in their arrogance - tried to dictate this as an industry standard and it backfired. Wasn't long before VHS took over and Betamax was left in the dust and eventually discontinued.

I believe they also charged royalties for every player and tape. It wasn't all bad for the format, it was widely used by the broadcast industry until hdtv.

I've always though the Zune should have done better, unfortunately it never had decent support from Microsoft.

 

[Guest]

Lmao, gamecube has been popular for a long time and had a game featured in major league gaming for good number of years. one of it's titles is still heavily played to this date in competitions very often in tournaments

 

[Guest]

Selfie sticks.. I still remember, selfie sticks are available/hit the markets since 1990s.. but, it became popular later about 10 years after

 

[SuperGeekNo1]

Sega Dreamcast
Nintendo Gamecube
Philips Cinema 21:9 TV series
Nintendo Wii U

 

[Pinkie Pie]

Betamax. Much better quality (and smaller) than VHS, but Sony - as per usual in their arrogance - tried to dictate this as an industry standard and it backfired. Wasn't long before VHS took over and Betamax was left in the dust and eventually discontinued.

Betamax failed because they wouldn't allow porn and VHS would.

That's a myth actually, and it was available on that format. I think it is more likely because of the fact that when it came out the tapes only held 1 hour of video, not enough for a single movie. Combine that with Sony's high prices and the fact that JVC's 2 hour VHS was much cheaper and available from many companies it made Betamax DOA.

 

[EClyde]

The electric fork

 

[oranuro]

Dreamcast-Zune-LaserDisc-AMD socket 939.

 

[Uncle Al]

Let's not forget the Thermos Bottle ... keeps hot things hot and cold things cold
... after all, how does it know?

 

[Ranger1st]

NEO GEN

TURBO GRAFX 16

JAZ drives ( because DAT drives were frikin over priced pos's )

RENDER DRIVE ( this last one was a god send back the late 90's early 00's for small animation studios)..

 

[darkzelda]

Nintendo Game Cube, that was my last console and a good dawn one. I'm a PC gamer now but I'd really like to buy a WiiU