Photos: Annoying hardware, a rogues' gallery

Hardware may be less 'in your face' than software, but it can still ruin your day. We've listed our main bugbears: let us know if you agree.

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Hardware Hell
Bad software is annoying because it's in your face. Bad hardware is more subtle in its evil: annoyances that seem trivial at first can build over time like a pebble in your shoe into an eternal shaft of dismal misery. You'd hope that after quarter of a century of PC design, the worst excesses of thoughtless engineering would be behind us. You'd hope wrong. Here are just some of the mishaps that continue to take the shine off the technology that changes our lives.

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Even the iPhone... Anonymous -- 11/06/08

Unfortunately this article is disturbingly accurate... but here's hoping that customers are starting to recognise the junk that's so prevalent.

If you watched yesterday's launch of the iPhone 3G, what feature do you think drew the most applause from the crowd? The fact that it's 3G? Nope. The fact that is has inbuilt GPS? Nope. How the 10 hour talk time? Nope. The most applause was for the announcement of a standard headphone jack so you can use any headphones you like!

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iPhone Anonymous -- 11/06/08 (in reply to #320103833)

very true -- the headphone jack was a no brainer. Glad Apple finally figured that out.

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Shiny Screens Anonymous -- 11/06/08

Shiny screens are for cinematic quality. You cannot get a good "black" unless you have a reflective screen. As such it is usually an option on leisure laptops for DVD watching, and for graphics designers who want true colours.

I have a shiny cinematic screen and I love every bit of it!

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Photos: Annoying hardware, a rogues' gallery Anonymous -- 11/06/08

good ideas, but how about those dumb photo galleries on web sites with tiny pictures you have to scroll through and click, c'mon there's better ways than that.

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AC adapters Dean -- 11/06/08

I think different sockets for different AC adapters are a good thing. I've killed a number of devices by plugging the wrong adapter into the wrong device -- if the sockets had been different sizes, there'd be no problem.

What annoys me about AC adapters, though, is the way you gotta plug the brick directly into the socket. God forbid you want to use a power board (or even a double wall socket) -- you only get to use one out of every two sockets because the bricks are too fat to fit side-by-side...

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Glossy displays Craig Ringer -- 11/06/08

Gloss displays have their advantages, starting with beautiful blacks but also better saturated colour and colour graduation.

People always complain about reflections, but honestly I don't have a problem with them. My XPS M1330 has a gloss display and with its LED backlight it's perfect in bright shade and usable even in full sunlight. I find it *easier* to ignore the reflections on gloss displays because they disrupt the image less and my brain seems to be better at filtering them out.

I do buy the grot argument though - they're a REAL pain to keep clean. They pick up and show dust, sneeze crud, etc like nothing else. To me it's worth it for the quality and improved outdoor usability.

I'm not convinced about gloss coatings for high end colour-accurate displays, but for most uses I think they're dramatically superior. Even with hard lighting

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Mobile broadband modems Craig Ringer -- 11/06/08

.... do come built in to many laptops now, with a nice standard Mini-PCI-E interface and a built-in antenna with standard connectors. You just need to pick a decent laptop, like in the days when 802.11 was just becoming popular and not everything had built-in antennae and mini-PCI slots yet.

Sometimes if you don't have the room in a laptop you can even borrow the 802.11 antennae and replace the 802.11 Mini-PCI-E card with a UMTS/HSDPA modem.

I have built-in UMTS/HSDPA in my XPS M1330, and it's fantastic. Absolutely fuss free, and since it has its own antennae there's no interference with the wifi.

External crud in general is annoying with laptops, but you can get almost anything built-in if you're willing to buy the laptop that fits your needs in the first place.

By the way: Add to annoying things "Websites that like to reload periodically to shove more ads down your throat, but aren't clever enough to just reload the ads".

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Hit and miss Anonymous -- 12/06/08

Laptop controls - Apple's multi-touch pads seem to be getting it right (if only they'd put the second button on).

Laptop peripherals - Agreed, some new ones have you scratching your head. Although, in that particular photo's case, I'd sooner blame the device manufacturers for not sticking to the USB size specification (if they did, all devices would fit next to each other in a standard port array). Whoever made that cylindrical thing should be shot.

Power packs - nothing bugs me more than big socket-located AC bricks. Can't they understand that we don't mind if they stick out a little further, but not wider? I'm for different size plugs for different voltages though - a 48V AC prick shouldn't have the same plug/lead/colour as the 12V next to it.

Wireless keyboards - for HTPC, or any other uses on a big screen where you need to be seated further away, they serve a purpose. For normal PCs though, they're overkill for the sake of two cables running to your monitor/tower. That said, it's nice not having a mouse cord to drag/snag on desk/shelf edges.

Touch inputs - a flat glass interface to a digital system trying to not only interpret, but interact, with a human's fine motor skills is, and always will be, fraught with danger.

Flash cards - yes, the proliferation of formats is stupid - chalk it up to greed/pride, companies making a new "standard" and barking "mine!mine!mine!mine!" for recognition and royalties. An open message to Sony, Fujifilm and Siemens - SD won, get over it. I don't like the "SD is small enough" statement though, for modern mobiles and such full-SD cards take up too much valuable phsical space.

Printers - could not agree more. Older inkjet printers (our old Apple Color Stylewriter, even the b/w Stylewriter before it) used to be rock solid and inexpensive. Now the price of ink makes refills redundant - it's literally cheaper to buy the newer model printer (which, conveniently, seems to be released every month or two, about when the ink runs out anyway :)). Of course by then, with the problems I've had with cartridge heads and paper feeders on new printers (reading this Lexmark?), throwing out the bathtub with the bathwater isn't such a bad idea these days.

Glossy displays - as others have said, they have a place. Personal preference really.

Graphics cards - the power consumption, noise/heat output and physical size of top-line GPUs these days is rather embarrassing in the current power climate. I put a lot of the blame, however, on the game developers who insist on designing today's games to stress tomorrow's hardware. Without warranty-breaking overclocking and/or modifications, the fastest CPU/GPU/RAM/HDD avaiable on the market still cannot run Crysis (2yo now?) comfortably at HD resolutions. That's ridiculous. We need to look at more efficient coding rather than higher clock speeds - either that, or *SHOCK* separate the concepts of entertainment value and eye candy.
However, I resent the implication that all gamers are immature children who should "grow up". Can adults not enjoy video games? The average gamer age now is actually over 18.

Headphone jacks - ah, proprietary accessories, love to hate them. At least, as far as mobile phones go, they're standardising micro-USB for power and data, so no more Nokia-only chargers or Motorola-only data cables.

Wireless modems - it's only time until they become internal.

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Laptop headphone jacks Anonymous -- 13/06/08

And why to laptop manufacturers insist on putting more jacks for things like headphones on the front.

using a laptop on your lap, with headphones and the jack at the front is very uncomfortable!

for men =)

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Rogues Gallery Anonymous -- 17/06/08

Oh yeah
Now what can one actualy do about it?

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Inkjet printers mark -- 17/06/08

I have not had any problems with my current Canon IP4500 printer. And the print quality is great especially now I can print my parents old mounted slides I scanned as 6x4 borderless photos.

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AC Adapters Anonymous -- 17/06/08

The makers of these devices should be like the IGO 12V adapter I have in that you get the powerlead/plug and just get the tip when you buy a new device.

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