Flaws, failures, and flops: These are the worst smartphones ever made

People first started using the word “smartphone” more than 20 years ago, but most would agree that the modern smartphone emerged a little more than a decade ago when Apple unveiled the original iPhone. Google launched Android not long after, and we’ve seen countless smartphones since then, some great, some not so great, and some truly terrible.

We’re concerned with the worst of the worst here, but there are lots of reasons that you might consider a smartphone for this list. While obscure budget devices from little-known brands may objectively be the worst smartphones of all time, they are easy pickings. We’ve decided to focus on glorious failures from the biggest brands. If you owned any of these phones, you have our deepest sympathy.

BlackBerry Storm

When touchscreen smartphones really started to take off, complacent smartphone giant RIM, which had been dominating with the BlackBerry range, realized it needed to jump on the bandwagon. Cue a rushed, poorly designed, ill-thought-out, stinker of a smartphone. The BlackBerry Storm had an incredibly laggy clickable screen, terrible battery life, and dated software. It also lacked Wi-Fi support. According to Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry, most of the one million BlackBerry Storm phones sold in 2008 were returned, and it was dubbed the “Shit Storm” by RIM employees.

HTC Thunderbolt

The HTC Thunderbolt was the first real 4G smartphone with LTE support to land on Verizon, but the hype soon gave way to angry customers. The launch was delayed, and when it was finally released, the limited availability of LTE networks was far from the only problem with this device. The battery life was abysmal, it had a habit of restarting itself at random, and software updates were painfully slow to come. The chunky, bug-ridden Thunderbolt, with its unusual built-in kickstand, remains one the most hated Android flagships ever released.

Motorola Droid Bionic

Announced at CES in January, 2011, the Motorola Droid Bionic didn’t land until eight months later. Despite the lengthy delays, which were supposed to allow for improvements, the favorably- reviewed, hump-backed Droid Bionic failed to please owners. It may have been the first dual-core 4G LTE phone, but it sadly featured a dull, PenTile LCD screen, a slow camera, and disappointing battery life. Throw in MotoBlur — one of the worst Android manufacturer skins ever created — and a smattering of random crashes and lag, and you have a very unpopular device. Support for the expensive “Lapdock” accessory, which turned the Bionic into a wee laptop like the Atrix before it, didn’t help.

Amazon Fire Phone

Having done well with tablets, Amazon decided it was time to conquer the smartphone market, but for some reason it abandoned the budget approach that had served it so well. Offering distinctly ordinary specs, poor battery life, a dull design with typical Amazon build quality, and sluggish performance at a flagship price all turned out to be bad ideas. Who’d have thought? Featuring Fire OS — Amazon’s forked version of Android — the Fire Phone lacked support for Google apps, along with a host of other top Android apps. To make up for that, Amazon decided to include a gimmicky 3D effect without an obvious purpose and a special Firefly mode in the camera to allow you to point at real-world objects and identify them – but only if you bought them on Amazon. It took just three months for Amazon to admit defeat and accept a $170 million loss.

Samsung Galaxy Note 7

Malarie Gokey/Digital Trends

Samsung was ridiculed when it first released the Note series, but bigger phones were quick to catch on, and each new iteration sold better than the last. As a beautifully designed powerhouse of a phone, with special S Pen stylus support, things started out well for the Note 7 with a series of rave reviews. The smartphone secured its place on this list when a handful of devices spontaneously exploded or burst into flames. It may have been a great phone when it wasn’t on fire, but a faulty battery capable of causing explosions is not something you can ignore. The issue eventually prompted a global recall.

Dishonorable mentions

With space for just five on our list of the worst smartphones, there were plenty of candidates that didn’t quite make the cut. Here are a few of them.

Microsoft Kin One

The only reason that the Microsoft Kin One and Two don’t make this list is because they can’t really be described as smartphones. Microsoft spent more than two years and $1 billion on these sliding social phones that no one wanted to buy.

HTC ChaCha

Like a weird Android BlackBerry with a dedicated Facebook button, the horrendously-named HTC ChaCha was a cringeworthy release that proved that no one really wants a Facebook phone. It was released alongside the Salsa, which ditched the keyboard. For some reason, possibly contractual, it was followed by the HTC First a year later, which launched Facebook’s widely disliked Home user interface.

Asus Garminfone

The Asus Garminfone made it clear that SatNav manufacturers would not be muscling into the phone market in response to Google eating their lunch with its free Google maps software. A misplaced focus on navigation, poor camera, and bad battery life were some of its biggest issues.

HTC Evo 3D

We must praise HTC for its unrelenting drive to innovate before we mention yet another phone from the Taiwanese manufacturer. This time it’s the HTC Evo 3D, which had dual cameras long before it was cool, but in this case, they were for shooting 3D videos that no one would ever watch. If 3D couldn’t crack TVs, it was certainly never going to crack phones.

Samsung Fascinate

Back in the days before Samsung could call the shots, it made a different version of the Galaxy S for each carrier, and the most hated by far was the Samsung Fascinate on Verizon. Although it suffered from a persistent GPS problem, it was a good phone until Verizon got its hands on it. Not content loading it with bloatware, Verizon also made Microsoft’s Bing the default for search and navigation.

Everyone’s experience with smartphones is different, so if the worst smartphone you ever owned isn’t listed, let us know what it was and why in the comments.

Amazon, Netflix and studios sue subscription service over piracy

Hollywood studios usually fight piracy by chasing after software add-ons and free streaming services, with the occasional device thrown in. A paid service, however? That’s relatively rare… or at least, it has been. Amazon, Netflix and multiple Hollywood studios (including Disney, Fox, Sony, Universal and Warner Bros.) have sued SET Broadcast over allegations its SET TV service is used expressly for piracy. While there is a dedicated set-top box, the centerpiece is a $20 per month subscription service that offers access to over 500 live TV channels and “thousands” of on-demand shows, including Netflix shows and movies that are still officially limited to theaters. As you might guess, the media giants argue SET TV is focused “overwhelmingly, if not exclusively” on pirated material.

The companies also accuse SET Broadcast of going so far as to pay for video reviews and other sponsored material to drive subscriptions. The firm hasn’t commented on the case so far.

The lawsuit could have SET pay dearly. The court would order the service shut down, of course, but it would also impound devices and demand damages up to $150,000 for every piece of pirated work. That could easily amount to millions of dollars even if the penalties were limited to on-demand videos. Between the number of media industry companies involved in the case and the penalties they’re asking, it’s clear that the lawsuit is intended as a message to anyone that would design a service with piracy in mind — especially if they have the gall to charge for it.

Via: TorrentFreak

Source: GeekWire

US military hopes to launch rockets in ‘days, not years’

Even in the era of private spaceflight companies, the process of getting a rocket into space is glacially slow: it can take months or years to schedule and prepare for a mission. That was fine when launching any rocket was a special occasion, but DARPA thinks the industry can do better. The military research agency recently kicked off a Launch Challenge that encourages companies to cut these launch timetables to “days, not years.” Teams will have to develop systems that can launch two low Earth orbit rockets at different sites within days of each other, and with little advance notice. They’ll only know where the first launch site will be within a “few weeks,” and they’ll learn about the payload mere days before blastoff.

There isn’t a huge amount of turnaround time: the actual competition will take place in late 2019, with a “competitors’ day” helping to get the ball rolling on May 23rd of this year. There will be a strong incentive to pick up the pace, though, as DARPA is offering $10 million for the top prize ($9 million and $8 million for second and third places respectively), and every team that completes the first launch scores $2 million. And it’s not just about achieving speed at all costs. Officials will judge launches not only on timeliness, but on the accuracy of the launch, the nature of the payload and the rocket mass.

The challenge is clearly useful to the military, which could use rapid turnaround times to launch spy and communications satellites at the very moment they’re needed. However, the results of the challenge could help with launches of all kinds going forward. The current system is utterly impractical for space tourism, where frequent launches would be necessary to improve the economies of scale and make trips vaguely affordable.

Via: Space.com, SpaceNews

Source: DARPA

It’s now safe to skin your Nintendo Switch

When it became clear that vinyl wraps and other stickers were damaging the Switch, you could practically hear the wailing from console customizers everywhere. How were you supposed to add a personal touch to Nintendo’s machine without giving it a permanent paint scheme? At last, there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Dbrand is now offering Switch skins that it promises are “100% safe” for the system’s plastic housing. The company said it spent a year working with 3M to create a “unique” adhesive that won’t wreck the design.

As always, the amount you pay depends on how much customization you want. It costs $5 per Joy-Con skin, $10 for the Switch itself, $7 for the dock’s side and $8 for the dock’s accents. All told, you’re looking at about $28 to cover the system head-to-toe, and that’s before the $10 tempered glass screen protector. You’re also applying these skins yourself, remember. Still, it’s definitely easier to swallow that cost than to pay for paint, especially knowing that you can remove or swap skins if you ever change your mind.

Via: Dbrand (Twitter)

Source: Dbrand

BMW releases a teaser for the iX3, its first all-electric SUV

BMW announced back in March that it’s debuting a concept version of the iX3 at Auto China 2018 in Beijing. It’s the automaker’s first all-electric SUV, and it’s also the first EV it’s launching since it started producing the i3 back in 2013. Now, the company has released a teaser of the 2020 iX3 on Twitter, and while you won’t see much of the vehicle at all, the short video does show BMW’s iconic kidney grille design morphing into something else.

Something exciting is coming. Stay tuned for the Auto China Beijing 2018!#BMWBeijing @BMWi #BMWi pic.twitter.com/JxNX4KFIDc

— BMW Group (@BMWGroup) April 20, 2018

Unfortunately, company chief Harald Kruger didn’t share more details when it confirmed the model’s debut. Based on its name, though, it’s most likely the electric “i” series version of the automaker’s X3 SUV. As Autoblog noted, it’s one of the dozens of electric models BMW plans to offer by 2025 and is a product of the company’s efforts to expand its EV biz. In addition to working on other electric vehicles, including a coupe and an autonomous luxury car, BMW is also going into EV battery production and is working with other big automakers to develop a Europe-wide charging network.

Auto China 2018 will begin on April 25th, so make sure to check back if you want to see what the iX3 looks like.

Via: Electrek

Source: BMW Group (Twitter)

Google Arts & Culture explores remote world heritage sites in virtual reality

Thanks to Google’s new Arts & Culture project, developed in collaboration with a non-profit called CyArk, you can tour some of the most remote but historically significant locations in the world. The Open Heritage project provides virtual access to 26 world heritage sites in 18 different countries, complete with data about each location, 3D structural models, and laser scanning technology.

“We’ve been collecting these sites for 15 years,” CyArk CEO John Ristevski told NBC News. “Google approached us about opening up our archives to a much broader audience, and we’ve been wanting to do that for a long time.”

Google has provided virtual tours of historic sites before, but The Open Heritage website includes detailed photos, information about ancient artifacts, and 3D scans to anyone with a web browser or iOS or Android phone. A virtual reality (VR) headset opens a full 360-degree view captured by high-resolution cameras.

CyArk

Ristevski told Wired that even amateur historians could discover new information using Open Heritage. “Some of the exciting frontiers are in virtual reality and augmented reality and we are excited to see what type of experiences people can build around heritage data — from immersive virtual tours to overlaying rich contextual information while you are on site — they all start with an accurate map of what is there,” he said.

There’s a wide range of sites available for virtual exploration that span human history, from the ancient temples at Corinth in Greece to the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C.

The locations featured in Google’s new online exhibit are just a few of the heritage sites that CyArk has researched since the project began in 2003. Their extensive documentation includes drone photography as well as light detection and ranging (LIDAR) measurements. LIDAR allows researchers to create exact 3D structural models accurate to within 5 mm.

Some of the sites are so remote, a virtual visit is likely the only way to experience them. “Many of these places, for whatever reason, are just not open to the public,” Ristevski said.

The data that Open Heritage has collected is not just being used for preservation, but restoration of ancient artifacts as well. After the foundation mapped and photographed the Buddhist temples at Bagan in Myanmar, a 2016 earthquake damaged hundreds of them and closed parts of the site. One of the Open Heritage exhibits details the reconstruction efforts that are underway, using CyArk’s data.

A favorite destination for virtual tourists is the ancient astronomical observatory at Chichén Itzá in Mexico. According to digital archeologist Chance Coughenour, it’s one of the few circular structures discovered in the Mayan ruins. “It’s been proven by researchers that the Maya used this to study the sun, sunsets, sunrise, the Equinox, and stars,” he said.

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VW’s electric Pikes Peak racer accelerates faster than an F1 car

After months of promises and teases, VW has formally unveiled its electric Pikes Peak race car… and its performance might be surprising even in light of earlier hype. The I.D. R Pikes Peak is built to smash Pikes Peak’s EV record of 8 minutes and 57 seconds not through brute force, but by achieving a finely tuned power-to-weight ratio. While the 680HP two-motor powerplant may not sound like much when the existing record holder (Drive eO’s PP100) packed a whopping 1,596HP, VW’s vehicle will weigh under 2,500lbs versus 2,646lbs for its archrival.

Combine that with potentially better aerodynamics (the VW car is closer to a Le Mans car than the usual hill climber) and the result is an EV that can outperform some of the fastest race cars. With a 0-60MPH time of 2.25 seconds, VW claims its machine can accelerate faster than a Formula 1 or Formula E racer. That could be crucial on Pikes Peak, where top speed matters far less than how you recover speed.

The weight savings come in part through energy regeneration. While many EVs can restore energy while braking, VW’s system manages to produce about 20 percent of the necessary energy through braking alone. You don’t necessarily need a giant battery to make it to the top, in other words.

The I.D. R Pikes Peak makes its debut at the 2018 race on June 24th. VW certainly isn’t guaranteed to seize the record, since that depends on both ideal weather conditions and an exceptional performance from both the car and driver Romain Dumas (a Pikes Peak champ). It would represent a milestone in EV performance if the company did, though, and the lessons learned from this car could apply to far more ordinary EVs.

The real challenge may be to beat the Unlimited class record of just under 8 minutes and 14 seconds, set in 2013 with a customized Peugeot 208. While modified EVs are already quicker than conventional Pikes Peak cars (which hover around 9 minutes 30 seconds), it’ll likely take further breakthroughs in power and weight savings to give EVs the overall performance lead.

Source: Volkswagen

The best projector for a home theater

By Chris Heinonen

This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Read the full article here.

The Sony VPL-HW45ES is the best projector for a dedicated home theater because it offers superb contrast ratios, accurate colors, plenty of light output, low input lag for gaming, and flexible setup options to help it fit almost any location. Typically selling for around $2,000, it costs about $1,000 less than anything else offering comparable performance.

Who should buy this

A dedicated home theater projector is meant for a room that offers complete light control. One of the major improvements in these projectors over entry-level models is the ability to produce much darker blacks, giving you better contrast ratios, but you’ll need to eliminate ambient light to appreciate this feature. You should also pair your projector with a good screen, which will give you brighter, more accurate images. Finally, you also need a surround speaker system. Projectors designed for a dedicated home theater room don’t have any speakers, so they need a separate sound system, usually with a receiver.

How we picked and tested

Photo: Chris HeinonenK

We looked for home theater projectors with 1080p resolution or higher, a pair of HDMI inputs, and flexible installation options. Some high-contrast projection screens require the projector to be centered to work optimally, and we imagine that many people dedicating a room to a home theater might not be custom-building it for that purpose, so DLP projectors that require mounting above or below the center of the screen didn’t fit our criteria. And since few people still care about 3D support, we didn’t require that in the projectors we tested.

Going by those criteria, we chose to test four projectors for our most recent update to this guide. To find out how the projectors stacked up against one another, we measured them ourselves using test equipment, including an i1Pro2 spectrometer and a Klein K10-A colorimeter, as well as test patterns from a DVDO AVLab TPG and an HDFury Integral. We tested for light output, contrast ratio, color and color-temperature accuracy, and more. To read more about our tests, see our full guide to home theater projectors.

Our pick

Photo: Chris HeinonenK

The Sony VPL-HW45ES is based on the higher-end VPL-HW65ES, dropping many of the advanced features that most people don’t need but keeping the performance nearly identical. For almost everyone, the VPL-HW45ES is the better choice, as it offers great contrast ratios, accurate colors, low input lag for gaming, a flexible lens for easy installation, quiet operation, and plenty of light output. At a price lower than that of last year’s excellent VPL-HW40ES (our previous pick), it’s a great bargain, as well.

The biggest reason to step up from an entry-level projector to the VPL-HW45ES is improved contrast ratios. This model also has a built-in Reference preset that gives you a very accurate image out of the box. Colors are rich and pure but not pushed, and textures display with vivid clarity. The darker blacks allow letterbox bars to disappear, make nighttime scenes much more realistic, and give the image far more pop.

In our tests, with input-lag reduction enabled, input lag fell from 106 ms to 22 ms. That’s one of the lowest measurements we’ve seen, better than what we’ve gotten from any other projector we’ve tested (and beaten only by one TV).

Upgrade for better connectivity and color rendering

Photo: Chris HeinonenK

We think the Sony VPL-HW45ES’s combination of user-friendliness and best-in-class image quality makes it an easy pick for most home theaters. But it lacks the advanced connectivity options that higher-end setups with some degree of automation require—namely, a 12 V trigger with IP control and an Ethernet port. If you need those ports, we recommend upgrading to the Epson Home Cinema 5040UB. The Epson gives you those features, along with an HDMI 2.0 input, slightly more accurate colors, the ability to display more of the HDTV color gamut, fully automated lens control (supporting screen aspect ratios other than 16:9 without letterboxing), the ability to display the expanded DCI/P3 color gamut used in Ultra HD Blu-ray and some streaming content, an analog D-sub 15 input, a pixel-shift feature that attempts to display more detail from 4K content, and a slight overall bump in image quality (which you may not notice).

The Epson 5040UB offers an improved contrast ratio over the Sony VPL-HW45ES, but not a gigantic leap: We measured about 25 percent more contrast. It also produces a brighter, sharper image than the Sony, putting out around 30 percent more lumens and creating a more uniformly sharp image with its larger lens. We could see this result in our test patterns and in real-world content. It has a slightly slower input lag, but at 31 ms, that’s still quite good.

Overall the Epson Home Cinema 5040UB provides improvements over the Sony VPL-HW45ES, but with standard content you might find the 50 percent price increase harder to justify.

This guide may have been updated by Wirecutter. To see the current recommendation, please go here.

Note from Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.

Apple Celebrates Earth Day With Ziggy Marley Concert, Apple Music Playlists, and $0.99 iTunes Movies Rentals

Today is Earth Day, and around the globe people are celebrating the annual event through demonstrations and gatherings aimed at showing support for the planet and protecting the environment. Apple began celebrations this past week in its retail stores, sending green shirts for its employees to wear and lighting up the Apple logo with a green leaf to mark the April 22 global event.

We’re celebrating Earth Day here at Apple. Thanks @ziggymarley for an inspired performance! 🎶 🌏 pic.twitter.com/cuNvbzdbiA

— Tim Cook (@tim_cook) April 21, 2018

On Friday, April 20, Apple held one of its annual Beer Bash concerts with a performance by Ziggy Marley. In a tweet, the musician explained that his performance at Apple’s campus was his “first set fully powered by solar energy.” Marley continued by thanking Apple: “Thank you for the example you set for companies around the world.”

Also in attendance during the performance was Lisa Jackson, Apple’s vice president of environment, policy, and social issues. In a tweet this morning Jackson reminded Apple Watch users about today’s Earth Day Challenge, which requires you to do any workout for 30 minutes or more before the day ends, and record your activity within the Workout watchOS app or any other app that adds workouts to the Health iOS app.

It’s @ziggymarley performing at my office on 4/20. Not bad for a Friday afternoon at work. pic.twitter.com/08pdH2c4e5

— Etan Horowitz (@etanowitz) April 21, 2018

The company is also celebrating Earth Day across its services, with a few themed playlists, iTunes movies, and iBooks getting top-billing today on each respective platform. On Apple Music, you can find the “Mixtape for Mother Earth,” which Apple Music editors describe as a soundtrack for Earth Day with songs “inspired by our planet’s natural wonders.” Artists and songs include Radiohead’s “Bloom,” The Beatles’s “Sun King,” Tegan and Sara’s “Our Trees,” and more, totaling 30 tracks.

While “Mixtape for Mother Earth” is the main playlist currently being promoted on the Browse tab, if you search for “Earth Day” you can also find playlists like “What are Earth’s favorite songs?” and other curated collections from previous Earth Day events.

Over on the iTunes Movies store, Apple has a collection of $0.99 rentals for films that all include messages about the environment. The list of just over 40 films has a mix of scripted movies and documentaries, including “FernGully: The Last Rainforest,” “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” “Fly Away Home,” “Blackfish,” “March of the Penguins,” “An Inconvenient Truth,” “A Plastic Ocean,” and more. There’s also a collection of Disneynature documentaries priced at $9.99, including topics like Oceans, Bears, African Cats, and Monkey Kingdom.

iBooks readers can also get in on the Earth Day celebrations thanks to a “Protect the Planet” section of the Featured tab within Apple’s digital books app. The books in the new collection “include meditations on Mother Nature’s delightful quirks, rallying cries for biodiversity, and blueprints for how to play a part in passing on a healthier planet.” The collection is split up into three sub categories called “Explore the Natural World,” “Get Informed & Inspired,” and “Do Your Part.” Books include “Unstoppable” by Bill Nye and Corey S. Powell, “Voices in the Ocean” by Susan Casey, and “A Hole in the Wind” by David Goodrich.

Earlier this month, Apple announced that its global facilities, including retail stores, offices, data centers, and more, are powered with 100 percent clean energy. Apple went into further detail about how it has lessened its overall environmental impact with the 2018 Environmental Responsibility Report, sharing stats about its reduced greenhouse gas emissions, lowered energy footprint, and more. The company also updated its trade-in and recycling initiatives into a new “GiveBack” program, and introduced a new iPhone disassembly robot named Daisy.

Tag: Earth Day
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