The 10 dumbest tech products so far

Awful wearable PCs, gaming systems that made you sick, free handhelds no one would take, and more. What'll they think of next?

Number 3: Diss N-Gage



Nokia N-Gage (2003)

Nokia makes fine cell phones. But when it comes to portable gaming devices...Nokia makes fine cell phones.

The N-Gage, an attempt to add cell phone functionality to a hand-held game system, didn't connect with anybody--and it didn't help that the device cost $100 more than Nintendo's ubiquitous Game Boy, that few titles were available for it, and that it looked like a gingham taco. Subsequent price cuts and redesigns didn't help much.

Rob Enderle, principal of The Enderle Group, comments: "Let's design a phone so that it looked like a game controller in your hand and a piece of pizza next to your head, doesn't actually have any compelling games; charge a lot for the device, and watch the money burn."

He adds that Nokia couldn't even give the N-Gage away at the big E3 gaming conference that year. "It took a special kind of intelligence to create a product that folks were afraid to get for free."

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