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The Worst New Products of 2010?

By Rick Aristotle Munarriz | More Articles
December 27, 2010 | Comments (8)

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Consumer electronics guru Walt Mossberg discussed his favorite -- and least favorite -- gadget introductions of 2010.                        

In an interview on The Wall Street Journal's Digits feature, the Journal columnist made sure that Apple's (Nasdaq: AAPL  ) iPad was on the top of his list of winners. Why not? Apple's selling roughly a million units every month of the industry-defining tablet.

Mossberg routinely kicks the tires of new products before they come out, and this also means that he sometimes gets an early feel for the stinkers.

Let's go over his three biggest duds for 2010:

  • Dell's (Nasdaq: DELL  ) Streak: As the ultimate tweener with its 5-inch screen, the Streak is smaller than even the 7-inch wave of bite-sized tablets that Apple's Steve Jobs recently ridiculed.
  • Google TV: This one's "a mess," according to Mossberg, mocking everything from Logitech's (Nasdaq: LOGI  ) awkwardly petite keyboard to the shortcomings of surfing the Web from 10 feet away. He had kind words for Google (Nasdaq: GOOG  ) on the Android front, but Google's inability to get networks on board with this clearly rushed product definitely hurt Google TV's chances this holiday season.
  • TiVo (Nasdaq: TIVO  ) Premiere: Mossberg considers himself to be a TiVo fan -- and has even chosen TiVo over cable DVRs for his home. However, he feels this box has failed to live up to the hype, with a lack of Web-based content and a clunky user interface.

It's hard to disagree with any of these three choices, though at least Google TV will stand to fight another day if it's able to win back hardware partners and get elusive network deals. Dell's "pocket tablet" can't last much longer, and TiVo continues to shed subscribers.

Mossberg left the short-lived Nexus One from Google off his list. It's also surprising that in a year when e-book readers finally became accessible to the masses after a fierce price war, Barnes & Noble's (NYSE: BKS  ) NOOKcolor didn't make the cut on either list.

Either way, it was a busy year for watchers of consumer gadgetry. With Research In Motion's (Nasdaq: RIMM  ) PlayBook on the way and Apple's annual refreshes, 2011 isn't going to get any quieter.

What do you think was the worst new product of 2011? Share your thoughts in the comments box below.

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Google is a Motley Fool Inside Value recommendation and a Motley Fool Rule Breakers pick. Apple is a Motley Fool Stock Advisor selection. Logitech International is a Motley Fool Hidden Gems pick. The Fool owns shares of Apple, Google, and Logitech. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors.

Longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz is waiting on making a Google TV set-top purchase. He does not own shares in any of the stocks in this story. He is also part of the Rule Breakers newsletter research team, seeking out tomorrow's ultimate growth stocks a day early. The Fool has a disclosure policy, and it knows that roaming charges weren't billed in one day.


Comments from our Foolish Readers

Help us keep this a respectfully Foolish area! This is a place for our readers to discuss, debate, and learn more about the Foolish investing topic you read about above. Help us keep it clean and safe. If you believe a comment is abusive or otherwise violates our Fool's Rules, please report it via the Report this Comment Report this Comment icon found on every comment.

  • Report this Comment On December 27, 2010, at 1:25 PM, demodave wrote:

    Apple is only here beacuase it *isn't* a dud, so, um, whatever.

  • Report this Comment On December 27, 2010, at 1:37 PM, ckchan1234 wrote:

    I loved my Streak. It is an extremely functional tool and I carry it all the time. It is the worst device in 2010? "Bull Sh__"

  • Report this Comment On December 27, 2010, at 3:30 PM, AKDreams wrote:

    Wow, wake up Walt Mossberg. The Dell Streak is not a tablet, it is a phone and should be reviewed as such. Steve Jobs must have paid him to review it as a tablet.

  • Report this Comment On December 27, 2010, at 4:50 PM, foolindeed1 wrote:

    Once again Fool's so-called analysts how their true face towards Barnes & Noble. Even though Nook Color has been called "a game changer" and picked as Editor's choice by PC Magazine and CNET while ZDNet, AllThingsDigital, NEW York times all praise the product and it it projected to sell over a million of units in a bit more that one month since the release, Fool's "analysts" were expecting to see it on "Worst Product of 2010" list. I'm speechless. Could you at leader try to pretend to be fare and not root so much for the companies stocks of which you hold like Apple and Amazon? Writers on other more reputable sites at least provide a disclaimer if they hold stocks of competitors of compnie rheumatoid about but Fool's site is clearly different.

  • Report this Comment On December 27, 2010, at 5:00 PM, InfoThatHelp wrote:

    You think the Streak and Nook are duds? Wait til PlayThing hits dirt direct from the backwoods of Taiwan.

  • Report this Comment On December 27, 2010, at 5:03 PM, InfoThatHelp wrote:

    iPad is King. The clones are W H O R E S.

  • Report this Comment On December 27, 2010, at 9:58 PM, TMFBreakerRick wrote:

    foolindeed1, I wrote that I was surprised that NOOKcolor didn't wind up on EITHER list (best or worst). It wasn't a knock. I think Barnes & Noble will have some serious challenges in marketing its devices given its fiscal shortcomings, but my initial coverage of NOOKcolor was quite favorable.

  • Report this Comment On January 01, 2011, at 12:52 AM, XMFMitten wrote:

    I have to say I'm really tired of all the complaints about the Streak's size. Everybody wants to cram it into either a "tablet" or "phone" category and can't seem to fathom that it's a little bit of both at the same time. It's just big enough to be a tablet and just small enough to be a phone. That's the beauty of it. It's not a perfect device -- mine has had its share of bugs -- but I'm quite happy with it. It's an amazingly functional device. And it's pointless to compare it to the iPad, because it doesn't do what the iPad does. For one thing, it actually makes calls and takes pictures. Mossberg doesn't know what he's talking about.

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