Anything with fucking Bluetooth. Even in 2024 getting it to connect consistently requires some kind of arcane magic
I had to buy a Clicker for college in a day when any number of phone apps, or even the Smart board, would have done exactly the same thing. I think it cost about $150 and the only thing it did – THE ONLY THING IT DID – was serve as an expensive and drastically crippled version of Kahoot. Abject waste of money for all parties involved.
HP Printer
Tablets. I’ve owned 2 so far, plus fucked around with a third, fancier one that was borrowed from someone else (in case you care: a very old Samsung one, a Xiaomi model from the late 2010s, and a new-ish Apple iPad for the borrowed one).
They suck as smartphone replacements because they are too big.
They lack button inputs, so they suck as gaming devices or as computer replacements.
You can browse the web… But if you decide to type anything, the large size plus the touchscreen keyboard make for an awkward experience (in ways that it’s not on a smaller phone)
They have lit screens, so they suck as eReaders.
They’re sorta okay as like, personal screens for watching movies or whatever, but like, at that point just use a television??
They can make sorta good drawing tablets, the ones that are pen-compatible I mean… Because I mean, yeah. But the lack of a keyboard is a bummer with how I learned to draw with my other hand on Ctrl+Z, though that’s more a muscle memory issue than anything.
In general, every tablet I used felt like a less-good verion of a dozen other devices, yanno?
I went from a cheap mp3 player that I could just plug in to my computer and drag in music to an iPod which forced me to download the iTunes bloatware create an account and then took 100x longer to transfer music because of the pointless conversion each file had to undergo. This was my first and last experience with a personal Apple device. Ended up putting some old pop music onto it and giving it to my grandmother after 2 days. Uninstalled iTunes and went back to using my cheap mp3 player until I replaced it with a smartphone.
Coming in as a close second place, an all-in-one Sony Vaoi computer that cost a fortune and had shit performance. Took daily nags to Sony before they took it back and gave me a refund. I find that Sony’s hit and miss though. My favourite smartphone (Xperia Play) was Sony, and I love my Sony Bluetooth earbuds. The Sony Smartwatch was shit.
Anything that relies on mini/micro USB for charging. With enough repeated use, they eventually cause an early failure of the device.
Manual lawnmower.
The surface RT and windows ME e-machine computer were both a close second.
HP anything, absolute trash
A Xiaomi smartwatch. I never found any good use for its “smart” features and I had to charge the fucking thing all the time. So I ended up dropping it after a year in favor of a regular digital watch.
Any and all dishwashers and refrigerators I’ve ever owned. Fuck planned obscelence.
Anything that accesses Expedia.com
I think the Thinkpad X130e with the AMD E-240 CPU. That processor, really, was the bad part. Every little single thing you wanted to do was absolutely CPU-bound, even when it was contemporary and new (c. 2011-2012). The amount of time I wasted waiting for the fully hammered CPU to do literally anything was too much.
I bought the laptop used because I figured a tiny Linux laptop would be great. And other aspects of it were fine, such as the display, keyboard, trackpad, build quality, etc. But that stupid CPU totally killed the device. Such a regret.
Fuck the surface pro 3, you’ll never get another cent from me Microsoft you fucking cunts! ( Except for halo mcc and infinite BUT NO MORE (unless the next halo is actually good but even the ONLY ON SALE))
Any Bluetooth headsets on Windows 11. On Windows there are two modes for Bluetooth headsets: One with high quality audio and no microphone, one with lower quality and mic support. On Windows 10 was able to change the mode, but on Windows 11 you can’t actively change it anymore, because “the software decides” this mode. So ever few weeks my headset switch to the output only mode, get stuck, and I cannot make a call with my team mates. The workaround is time consuming and frustating.
Too bad I have to use Windows for work. Most companies do not have Linux option, even for devs.
An iBook. I had the GPU replaced twice under warranty. I sold it after the second time. Never again.
