Ten gadgets that died in 2011
Summary: From tablets to cameras, a variety of devices met their end in 2011. But will any be remembered?
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A year after killing off the cassette-based Walkman, Sony did the same for its MiniDisc counterpart. Axed in September, the MiniDisc Walkman lived a long, surprising twenty-year product life.
Why it died: Considering that Sony sold the device for two decades, its perhaps wrong to say that the MiniDisc Walkman died. Its time simply had come.
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Talkback
Zune.
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
Music players not dead
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
You simply don't get the dynamics of the situation.
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
Sounds almost like an oxymoron. Are you sure you meant what you said?
[i]That and the fact that anyone in the know is well aware of this. The fact is that its relatively well known that the Windows phone will be brought back to life in the not too distant future as something thats being suggested will be a powerhouse. That may or may not turn out to be the case, but anyone who says the potential of it happening is at least present doesn't know what they are talking about. Its also known that much of the kind of thinking and knowledge that went into the Zune will be finding its own form of home in the new Windows phones when they do come out.[/i]
Translation: vaporware
[i]Either you simply don't understand where things are really at at all, or for some reason you cant bring yourself to acknowledge that iPods are on the decline and the Windows phone will live again.[/i]
Yes, yes, yes we've heard it all before. Like watching grass grow.
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
I don't know about those "lines" but as a US user since Win Phone 7 (Foucus) came out I was disappointed for signing a 2-yr contract for a pitiful phone but then along came Mango update and now I wouldn't trade it for any other type. Even my grandson, a computer engineer and a devoted Apple fan dropped his jaw when he saw the difference Mango made. Now he's going for the Windows Phone. So people who only read reviews on the original should go back and see what the "experts" say about it after the Mango update. Unfortunately, cell phone sales folks were steering people away and to Androids but MS says they are going to launch a massive program to educate the sales departments on the plusses of Windows Phone 7 with Mango. Doubtful it will take over the market anytime soon but give it time for word of mouth to spread.
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
Translation: Microsoft is going to be pushing kick-backs to Mobile carriers. Windows mobile phone version 7 was a dud out of the gate, yet Microsoft was expecting massive sales because it is a Microsoft product. If you look at the target market, Microsoft Windows Mobile Phone v.7 should be on a feature phone. No one in their right mind would pay $750 for a mobile phone with only 16 GB of onboard storage. Maybe Microsoft should have been more honest about this update, rather than lying about the competition, then under delivering (yet again).
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
I have to say this one really bothers me...........I would take the 120 Zune over an Ipod classic ANY DAY............no frills, just music that sounded much, much better than any sound I've been able to get off any IPOD. Guess I'll check out the new Samsung stand-a-lone (sort of) music player. Anything but that horrible mess called Itunes. And the Zune Pass is fantastic! Not sure what the latest on that is. With 100+GB of music, don't really care. I'd have liked to have seen them keep producing the HD and 120GB.
Zune too.
My concern with the WP7's is battery life. though I don't want to go back to carrying two devices again, I and can definitely see how people would carry around two devices (phone and mp3). I solved the problem with leaving a charger at work for my phone and just plugging in the phone to "top off the battery!"
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
A) Products that died because a new technology supplanted them: Flipvideo, MiniDisc.
B) Products that coudn't compete with Apple: Zune, HP Touchpad, Dell Streaks, Sharp Galapagos and to a certain extent Google TV.
And then there's the Macbook. If this were any other manufacturer we wouldn't even notice that they were ending a product line, especially when they've got other product lines that do the same thing.
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
Huh? If Dell dropped the inspirion line or Lenovo dropped the thinkpad line I think we would hear about it.
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
Yeah. The issue is that Apple have better products in different lines at nearly the same price point as the MacBook in the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro lines. However, Dell and Leveno don't have lines that converge, so wiping out the Inspirion and ThinkPad lines would be noticed.
I think what @dsf3g meant to say was "if this were any other manufacturer we _would_ notice that they were ending a product line, because they don't have product lines that do the same thing at the same price." Not many people noticed that the MacBook was gone, but yes, educational institutions got a huge price drop for the MacBook. My daughter got accepted to a school (the one that President Obama graduated from) where every student gets a MacBook (new one every two years) at $500 (might be subsidized - tuition is $18k - but $500 more for the computer), but she went to a different school (my alma mater - tuition is $16k - I can buy her a killer computer for that $2k difference). But the point is that the MacBook got squeezed out and at 1 model, it isn't that noticeable.
music players dead - what???
Have you told Apple about this? They're selling LOTS of them . . . . .
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
Love my Zune
Zune too
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
RE: Ten gadgets that died in 2011
The Atari brand has changed hands several times since the days of the 8-bit computers. For all means and purposes beyond the name, that Atari is long, long gone.