Some gadgets are good-looking — chances are the look of your cell phone was a major concern when you went shopping.
Then again, some gadgets are ugly. Very, very ugly. We’ve found the ugliest gadgets ever made, so you don’t have to. Some you’ve likely seen before, others you thankfully haven’t. Just believe us: You’ll never take your iPod for granted again.
Vertu Signature Cobra
The fact that the price tag ($310,000… yes that’s a comma and not a period) isn’t the ugliest part of this phone should tell you plenty. Just spend a few seconds admiring the ruby-studded “Mug Me” snake glued to the phone. Thankfully, they only produced 8 of these. Meaning your chances of running into one are about as good as a slurp-ready Zune to play with in the wild.
Oakley O-ROKR/Thump
Oakley and Motorola tag-teamed for this case of misguided digital/optical convergence. Even with all of their practical shortcomings aside (imagine the decision you have to make when driving at night: do I keep my sunglasses on and drive nearly-blind, or risk getting a ticket for holding my phone?), these things are just plain hideous. These look like something a 7-year-old boy would think looks “cool”, and basically scream “I demand attention!”
Nokia N-Gage:
One word: ChocoTaco
Indicatear
You know when you’re running and you’re in The Zone and you absolutely positively can’t take a second to make it clear to anybody around you what direction you’re about to turn lest it ruin your perfect gait? Wouldn’t it be great if your head had built-in turn signals?
Bang&Olufsen/Samsung Serene
At first glance, it looks like you’re holding a birth control compact to your head. At second glance, people realize you spent too much on an ugly phone.
XACT XQ2500
This wireless headset (it may look Bluetoothy, but it’s all landline, baby) packs the number pad into the earlobe-sized side. The end result sort of looks like the skeleton part one of those cross-section anatomy books that show what your insides look like. And each bone is numbered.
BusLink iBot Mp3 Video Player w/ Speaker
It’s easy to forget that steampunk-inspired gadgets usually look neat.
Techno Privacy Scarf
You know those old-time cameras that featured massive hoods that completely covered their operator? Well once a product shrinks enough to become mobile, that concept rapidly changes from necessary to stupid to dangerous to absolutely hilarious.
Ristretto coffee mouse
I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to fondle all day is a mouse that looks like nutty stools.
Toshiba Bubble Helmet
360-degree immersion in Halo may sound cool, but balancing six pounds of Space Balls-chic hideousness on your head ain’t.
LED Pong Hat
If you’re going to stick an old-school video game on the front of a hat that looks like it was pulled from the streets of Moscow, the least you can do is make it Tetris.
Flower Power iMac 2001
There’s a reason your MacBook only comes in black and white.