20 worst-named tech products, ever

Cool-er

We begin the countdown of the five worst names with a tie for number 5. Cool names? not! The Cool-er stood for cool e-reader. It wasn't so cool, but it did come in a lot of colors.

cuil

Also at number 5, Cuil was a search engine that forgot to find a good name.

Caption by David Carnoy

Samsung :)

Samsung's Smiley phone actually had the famous smiley-face emoticon in its name. Ouch. Bad idea all around. We're number 4.

Photo by: Samsung

Caption by: David Carnoy

Pentax *ist series

Never a good idea to put a * in a name. Guess it stands for artist or whatever. It's number 3.

Photo by: Pentax

Caption by: David Carnoy

mRobe

The mRobe ranks as the second worst-named product of all time. Once again, we think something got lost in the Japanese translation. The word was, an Olympus executive liked the idea of a product that you could come home to and slip on like a robe. (There was some comfort factor involved, if memory serves correct.)

Photo by: Olympus

Caption by: David Carnoy

TrekStor iBeat Blaxx

There have been lots of poorly named MP3 players over the years. (Samsung Yepp, anyone?) However, Germany-based TrekStor's iBeat Blaxx may go down in history as one the most unfortunately named tech products of all time after people accused the product of being racist. It made number 1 on our list.

Shortly after it launched, TrekStor CTO Gil Szmigiel, apologized for the misunderstanding and renamed the product the TrekStor Blaxx.

Ping

Apple has a dud every once in a while, and Ping makes our list.

Screenshot: Apple

Caption by: David Carnoy

G'zOne

Casio's line of ultrarugged G'zOne offer a lesson in the hazards of playing around with Caps key on the keyboard.

Photo by: Casio

Caption by: David Carnoy

Cisco Cius

Cisco's business tablet is pronounced see-us. Some might pronounce it more like tschuss, which means goodbye in German.

Photo by: Cisco

Caption by: David Carnoy

Chestnut Hill Sound George

By George, we actually liked the Chestnut Hill Sound George when we reviewed it a few years back. It has a detachable remote that mimicked the iPod's interface and sounded good, too.

We're not quite sure why it was called the "George," but we seem to remember one of the company reps mentioning something about being the first of its kind and a George Washington connection.

Photo by: Chestnut Hill

Caption by: David Carnoy

Gizmondo

The Gizmondo was a portable gaming device that never quite made it to market but spent a lot of time in trade show booths, which featured models wearing white Gizmondo T-shirts.

Caption by: David Carnoy

eee PC

Three Es all in a row do not make for a great name. Maybe if they capitalized one?

Photo by: Asus

Caption by: David Carnoy

iMuffs

The iMuffs are a Bluetooth headset.

Caption by: David Carnoy

Plastic Logic Que

A few people queued up online to preorder the Plastic Logic Que e-reader. But they never got it because it never came to market.

Sony Slingbox

Sony's Slingbox competitor actually worked pretty well, but "Location-Free TV" didn't quite make sense as a name.

Sony Muteki

Sorry, Sony, for putting so many of your products on the list, but you make a lot of tech products. We're not sure what the Muteki name is supposed to evoke, but it kind of sounds like mutant tech. If that's what you were going for, bravo.

Sony Qriocity

Qriocity did not kill the cat. It is Sony's streaming-movie and -music service.

Sony Rolly

Sony's break-dancing Bluetooth speaker, the Rolly, is pretty amusing to watch the first 10 times you see it in action. As a name, the Rolly isn't as bad as some on the list, but it has never been quite clear how to pronounce it. (Is it Roll-y or Rollie, like Rollie Fingers?)

Photo by: Sony

Caption by: David Carnoy

Tivoli iYiYi

Oy vey, it's the Tivoli iYiYi.

Photo by: Tivoli

Caption by: David Carnoy