Photos: 10 biggest gadget failures

From HP's TouchPad's to the Sinclair C5 electric and the DJ-in-your-pocket Pacemaker. What happened?

1 of 11

Gizmondo
Heralded by a disproportionately loud fanfare in 2004, finally on sale in 2005, and only 25,000 were sold before the PSP and DS totally destroyed it. A successor, the Gizmondo Widescreen, was announced but canned when parent company Tiger Telematics went bankrupt and one of its chiefs was exposed as a gangster.

Fusion Garage JooJoo
Starting life as the CrunchPad, the Linux-based JooJoo tablet was much anticipated. Shame it turned out to be a bit rubbish. It finally went on sale in April 2010 after a load of delays, by which time the iPad had arrived to show it how tablets should be done. By November it was dead, and never made it out of the UK.

Nokia N-Gage
Way before the Sony Ericsson Xperia Play, Nokia tried to combine a phone and games console. Sadly, it was ridiculous as a phone. Popping up in 2003, the N-Gage was basically a Series 60 smartphone shaped like an elephant's ear, but it did have some decent games. The tastier, teensier N-Gage QD came along in 2004, but by then the world was getting too excited by the forthcoming Nintendo DS and Sony PSP.

Tonium Pacemaker
Despite being quite groovy, the Pacemaker couldn't gain the audience it deserved – born 2007, died 2010. A pocketable digital DJ system, it was a genius idea, but perhaps too niche – and now looks outdated and unintuitive compared to apps such as Djay for iPad.

Apple Newton MessagePad
Apple was building PDAs before anyone knew what PDAs were. Various different models were introduced between 1987 and 1998, all featuring handwriting recognition and an ARM processor. Jonathan Ive, designer of the iPod, had a hand in slimming down them down over their lifespan, but they were still fat and overpriced.

HD DVD
When HD DVD went head to head with Blu-ray in 2006, we all knew there would be only one winner – the Blu-ray format championed by Sony's PlayStation 3. Despite early HD DVD players performing very well, and an add-on HD DVD drive appearing for the Xbox 360, umpteen PS3 owners were buying enough of the opposition's hi-def movie discs to mean Toshiba abandoned HD DVD in 2008.

10 of the most ill-fated gadgets
The HP TouchPad's premature demise has prompted us to reminisce about history's shortest-lived tech products, from the bizarro Sinclair C5 electric trike to the DJ-in-your-pocket Pacemaker.

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Photos: 10 biggest gadget failures

From HP's TouchPad's to the Sinclair C5 electric and the DJ-in-your-pocket Pacemaker. What happened?

10 of the most ill-fated gadgets

HP TouchPad

Sinclair C5

Motorola ROKR E1

Sega Dreamcast

Gizmondo

Fusion Garage JooJoo

Nokia N-Gage

Tonium Pacemaker

Apple Newton MessagePad

HD DVD

10 of the most ill-fated gadgets

Most popular tech stories

Westpac pilots AI to analyse inbound call content

Westpac hires CBA's data chief to lead AI, data and digital

Coles merges digital and customer leadership

Orica to set new workforce systems live in Australia in July

City of Sydney's HR uplift to help career management

Transport for NSW restructures tech division

Telstra to move away from 'best effort' connectivity, let users tweak attributes

In Pictures: Freshworks IT modernisation roundtable

Vic firefighters doing battle with IT outages

Westpac pilots AI to analyse inbound call content

Blackberry celebrates "giant step forward"

Photos: The 2024 IoT Awards winners

The three steps to industrial IoT success

How the University of Melbourne used LoRaWAN and IoT in ‘COVIDSafe’ strategy

Axis Communications opens experience centre in Sydney tech hub

Photos: 10 biggest gadget failures

From HP's TouchPad's to the Sinclair C5 electric and the DJ-in-your-pocket Pacemaker. What happened?

10 of the most ill-fated gadgets

HP TouchPad

Sinclair C5

﻿﻿﻿Motorola ROKR E1﻿﻿﻿

Sega Dreamcast﻿

Gizmondo

Fusion Garage JooJoo

﻿Nokia N-Gage

Tonium Pacemaker﻿

Apple Newton MessagePad

HD DVD﻿

10 of the most ill-fated gadgets

Related articles

TSMC says US tariffs have some impact but AI demand robust

Dell raises annual profit forecast on strong AI server demand

Nvidia to launch cheaper Blackwell AI chip for China after US export curbs, sources say

Most popular tech stories

Westpac pilots AI to analyse inbound call content

Westpac hires CBA's data chief to lead AI, data and digital

Coles merges digital and customer leadership

Orica to set new workforce systems live in Australia in July

City of Sydney's HR uplift to help career management

Transport for NSW restructures tech division

Telstra to move away from 'best effort' connectivity, let users tweak attributes

In Pictures: Freshworks IT modernisation roundtable

Vic firefighters doing battle with IT outages

Westpac pilots AI to analyse inbound call content

Blackberry celebrates "giant step forward"

Photos: The 2024 IoT Awards winners

The three steps to industrial IoT success

How the University of Melbourne used LoRaWAN and IoT in ‘COVIDSafe’ strategy

Axis Communications opens experience centre in Sydney tech hub

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Motorola ROKR E1

Sega Dreamcast

Nokia N-Gage

Tonium Pacemaker

HD DVD