The worst gadgets of 2016

Somebody's getting fired over this.

Updated Mon, December 26, 2016 at 3:00 PM UTC

1 min read

2016 was a year in which the fates seemingly asked, "Oh, you think that's bad? Here, hold my beer." We lost a Prince but gained a nacho-cheese-flavored, would-be king. We saw drones that couldn't stop falling out of the sky, Snapchat filters that only a racist uncle could love and more poorly executed gadget gimmicks than you can shake a selfie stick at. Here are some of the cringe-worthiest consumer products we had the misfortune of covering this year.

Lenovo thought it was taking a page out of the *Star Trek* playbook when it skipped a physical keyboard on the Yoga Book in favor of a digital sketchpad. It wasn’t. The writing surface is nearly impossible to type on unless you use the two-finger hunt-and-peck method from middle school. Heck, you can’t rest your fingers on the keys without activating them. Seriously, use a pen and paper instead.

Sony, look, just because you slap a “flagship” title on a phone doesn’t make it worth -- holy crap, $700? The Xperia X Performance is a flagship in name only. It offers only a modest performance boost over the standard Xperia X, uses the same screen and camera, and doesn’t even come with a fingerprint sensor. Tell me again why I wouldn’t just buy a Pixel or Galaxy S7?

Want to show your friends and family how irresponsible you are with money but aren’t quite rich enough to afford a pair of Nike’s *Back to the Future*-inspired self-lacing sneakers? No worries, the $1,500 Tag Heuer Connected will do exactly the same things as any other Android watch but for triple the price. It’ll even pair with your overpriced Xperia X Performance!

I bet Marvin the Martian would travel clear across a galaxy to get his hands on one of these bad boys. That way he wouldn’t need that pesky Q-36 space modulator to achieve an Earth-shattering kaboom. See, because the Galaxy Note 7 blows up for, like, no reason. Get it? Haha, OK, thanks. I’ll be here all week. Be sure to tip your waitress.

Want to look foolish but can’t get your hands on a pair of Snapchat Spectacles? Here, put on these ridiculous headphones from Vinci. They play music, track your activity and read text messages, all without connecting to your phone. They also display short messages on the ear cups like “I’m an adult, no really,” “My mom says I’m cool” and the ever useful “Why?”

2016: the year we made racism great again. And it wasn’t just our new Cheeto-colored commander in chief either: Snapchat was all up on the bigot bandwagon this year too, with filters like Bob Marley blackface and Nerdface's thick-rimmed glasses with braces. And who could forget the slant-eyed, buck-toothed, rice-paddy-hat-wearing “yellowface” disaster?

It’s already been recalled. It was on the market for just 16 days. Take a picture: It’ll last longer than the Karma was available for sale.

Nope. Nope, nope, nope, no, nopety nope. Go home, Apple, you’re drunk. First you kill off the headphone jack because you’re “courageous” and now you're gonna make us use an adapter that provides the exact same functionality of the thing you just eliminated? That’s just dumb.

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Lenovo Yoga Book

Lenovo thought it was taking a page out of the Star Trek playbook when it skipped a physical keyboard on the Yoga Book in favor of a digital sketchpad. It wasn’t. The writing surface is nearly impossible to type on unless you use the two-finger hunt-and-peck method from middle school. Heck, you can’t rest your fingers on the keys without activating them. Seriously, use a pen and paper instead.

Check out all of Engadget's year-in-review coverage right here.

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The worst gadgets of 2016

Somebody's getting fired over this.

Lenovo Yoga Book

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