34 MA XIMUMPC DECEMBER 2005
BASEMENT: PEER REJECTED
A selection of this year’s technological blunders highlights, by con-
trast, the exhilarating greatness of our Gear Of The Year collectionThermaltake Schooner
This fanless VGA cooler ran
so hot that games would
either crash or run at just 5fps
as the videocard throttled
down to save itself. It was
also messy and hard to
install.
$40, http://www.thermaltake.com
Received a 3 verdict in the
October 2005 issuePhilips Shogbox
A horrible screech emanating
from the speakers made us
think we’d forgotten to set
the Shogbox MP3-playing
alarm clock to wake us with
our own music instead of
an electronic buzz. Then we
realized, it was our music.
$130, http://www.philips.com
Received a 3 verdict in the
Holiday 2005 issueGizmondo
About the best thing we
can say about this buggy,
slow, handheld gaming
system is, if you consent
to wirelessly receive up to
three ads a day that appear
when you launch games,
you’ll feel ripped off for
only $300 instead of $400.
Happy Holidays!
$400 ($300 with ad service),
http://www.gizmondo.com
Received a 3 verdict in the
September 2005 issueSapphire Toxic Radeon
X700 Pro
Sapphire slapped a slot-devour-
ing cooler—three slots, count
‘em, three!—on this card just so
the clock on the scrawny eight-
pipe X700 Pro could be cranked
to 472MHz and its puny 128MB
frame buffer to 525MHz. Videocard
designs don’t get much dumber.
$200, http://www.sapphiretech.com
Received a 4 verdict in the April
2005 issueParkervision
WR
The box promised one
mile of range from this
802.11b router, which
might be possible if you
were someplace fl at,
with little radio inter-
ference—like central
Kansas. Unfortunately,
the WR1500 provided
only 802.11g-level range,
and at pitifully slow
11Mb/s.
$200, http://www.parkervision.
com
Received a 3 verdict in
the January 2005 issueApple Mighty
Mouse
While we give props
to Apple for fi nally
releasing a two-but-
ton mouse, we have to
wonder if the folks who
designed this monstros-
ity ever actually used
an input device. To
successfully click, you
must hover your fi ngers
over the buttons, and
push down on the entire
mouse. Bah.
$50, http://www.apple.com
Received a 3 verdict in
the Holiday 2005 issueGEAR
YEARof
the