Good idea, bad execution
344013
Good idea, but paint leaks everywhere. Spray was good but it dropped down my arm, on the floor and all over. Just know its very messy but if you put stuff down below you and are cool with your clothes getting messy, it sprays the perfect amount.
3074019
I am giving this 2 stars because I thought the idea was a good one, and it had a lot of potential. Unfortunately, it was ruined by the obvious lack of proofreading and continuity errors all over the place. A few typos I can handle, but when words are downright missing from sentences and I have to guess at what was meant, it takes me out of the story. Aside from the typos, it just wasn't well-written at all. There are many cases in which one thing is stated, and then shortly after completely contradicted. One example: In a competition, the announcer states the rules, one of which is if a participant gets the answer to a question wrong, they are eliminated and will have to leave the stage. Soon after, the main character's sister gets one wrong, and instead of leaving the stage sits back down (???) to hear the main character say, "You'll get the next one!" (?????)

Honestly this book felt like a very rough draft.
4062711
The retractable function is a good idea, but poorly executed on this inexpensive product.  You must be exceptionally careful when extending or retracting the cables, as they can easily jam within the mechanism.  Pull too hard or too quickly, and you'll spend several minutes untangling and rewinding.  You also have to pull equally from each side, which becomes a two-hand operation.  I would have preferred a device that I can plug into my ipod and just extend the cable to plug into whatever device I'm going to be using.
1519224
Trying to properly form this dental appliance is next to impossible.  Good idea, poor execution.  Ended up getting a proper appliance from my dentist after messing around with this thing in my mouth for several days.  I think it did more harm than good....
3330986
I like the idea of an exercise system that you can quickly pull out of a small storage space and get a good weight-training workout. It seems like a good idea, and this set of handles and cables looked like a good implementation of that idea. But in reality, this system does not work as well as I thought. It's hard to get the cables to give a gym-quality workout. While a lot of thought went into the design of this system, the reality is that it just doesn't work well enough to give a good workout.
1368655
This game is a nice idea from a 1st person shooter/rpg rolled into one, however, the design is flawed quite a bit.  The following are a list of things i see wrong currently with the game:

Bugs - This game includes many bugs with quests, and professions.  Just an example is the first quest one should to take to become jedi.  It is so bugged, that it takes approximately 2 hours to finish due to waiting on creatures to spawn and the number of people waiting at the quest site.  Speaking as an Information Technology professional, these developers are entry level at best, and really have alot of work to do to get a really good game put out to the masses.

Graphics - Graphics are pretty good, but the animations are choppy at best.

Customer Service - Canned responses are what you recieve when putting tickets into the system.  They contradict what they say constantly, and refuse to provide refunds when a customer has a valid issue.  Most answers are read from a script and don't really provide much help.

Forums Support - SOE is not very good at responding to forum questions.  Community is currenty on fire with issues, as well as cancellations of their subscriptions.

Overall - The game isn't currently that great.  Once they hire a better staff that can correct the issues it is possible to salvage something, but i currently doubt it due to what i have seen so far.
283934
Good idea, terrible execution. The ball crumples after one chomp and then the noise stops and you have just a ball. Also my puppy was playing with it and the lid that is on the ball inside popped off and was a serious choking hazard.
4455895
IMHO, GPS is the best technological innovation since the wheel.  But the Magellan 360 is clearly not the best execution of the concept.  There are several flaws in design of this product:

1) User manual only available on CD.  Do I need to take my laptop to the car?

2) Routing preference needs to be specified every time you choose a destination.  Why can't I just set "shortest time" as default for everywhere I go?

3) Street address input before city.  Now wouldn't the auto-fill function be more streamlined if the system had to look for relevant streets only in your town or city of interest rather than the entire region of the country you have chosen?  Also: no city, no address.  Say you just want to go to a small picturesque town, but don't have a full address; no can do.  Thank God for Main St.

4) Brightness of monitor is not easily adjustable.  You can see the display well during the day, but at night, you either have to go three leves deep into the settings to change to night mode or feel as if you had the interior lights of the car on. Other models simply change to night mode at a specific time of the day.

5) No simple-to-access mute option.

6) Slow processor.  If you miss an exit (yes I know the point of having a GPS is not to, but still, sometimes you do), it can take a few minutes to recalculate your new route.  If you are going 55 miles/hr, that can be an awful long time and a lot of poor choices before you are set straight again.

7) Weak antenna.  If you start in a new section of town, or if the sky is overcast, it may take up to 15 minutes for the device to find out where it is.  Yes it takes even longer if you fail to pull the antenna out.

8) Can't deal w/numbered streets.  I recently went to Miami and found myself constantly looking for the closest street to where I was going that had a proper name, as numbered streets such as 112th SW, will not be accepted.

9) Autonomous zoom.  The device decides on its own when to zoom in and out.  It would be nice to be able to override this feature.

10) Odd choice of labeling on maps.  A map will show the name of only certain streets.  Oddly not the main ones, or the nearest ones.

I used to have a simple built-in GPS in my car.  All it could do was show right and left arrows on the display and give you a voice warning.  But it was fast as hell, and that trumps colored displays and Point of Interest add ons any day in my opinion.  If you get this GPS, make sure you don't leave your printed maps at home.  You never know when you will need them!
4575676
I bought this for my 10 year old son figuring that we could assemble it together and have some father-son time. The problem is a very poor execution of a good idea. We both worked on putting together this watch kit and we both encountered nothing but frustration. First, the instructions are confusing and leave a couple of steps out. Second, several of the pieces are small and difficult to assemble. Additionally, The case and crystal are made of cheap plastic. The crystal scratched when we were screwing on the back. Finally, after assembling the watch, having done our best to follow the confusing instructions, the watch wouldn't run. I liked the idea of a kid assembling his new watch, but this kit would be difficult for an adult to assemble, let alone a kid.
3622835
I hate knocking a product, but this one is justified in it. The balls are too heavy, the table too small, and the cues too short and light, not to mention the balls are drastically too large for the table size. You can't play the game as designed. It's a novel idea, but it's one that should have stayed as an idea. Save your money and buy something else, even a checker game is worth drastically more in value and fun than this.
427790
Badly designed, it is so long, it will not seat into my power outlets on my 2011 Ford Focus.  Great idea, very poorly executed, very typical of the cheaply made Chinese manufacturing.  Promise a lot, delivers nothing.  It is not even a very good goose neck.

Oh, and if you ever need access to the fuse that is inside of it?  It will mean you have to destroy the item.

I found this out after attempting to make the product work by removing the rubber grommet.  Yea, there is a rubber, star shaped grommet on the very end of this.  I guess that is what they intended to keep the item from pivoting from the weight of the phone

Please do not waste your money on this.  I am pretty sure that there are better products out there.
1275397
The swappable switches are a fantastic idea!!! Three stars for that alone. It's too bad the rest of this board is all debbie doldrums.

1. LEDs are NOT RGB (and can't be replaced). They are just one color per row.
2. Non-detachable USB cable.
3. Cheap ABS keycaps.
4. Win key LED never turns off. (Who's idea was that?)
5. TKL model available only in gold deck. Really, gold? At least offer a silver option.
7. Exposed screws. (Can live with it, but sheesh.)
6. Giant "ZHUQUE" etched into front of deck.

All adds up to big fat Zero additional stars. It's too bad. Hopefully someday someone will do it right.
2718653
it took me about 6 hours of meddling before i could get the hub to connect with my wifi. after about a week, it dropped back off and i haven't even tried to get it working again, beyond a quick reset and 5 minutes of connection attempts. this was a great idea, but there's some definite problems with the execution.

the lamps (when they worked) would not adjust at the same time. one was always a couple seconds behind the other for on/off and intensity changes. the app was not very intuitive, and you couldn't group things in a way that seemed organic.

the one thing i will say is that the lamps themselves work just fine in switchable fixtures. that's actually how i've been using this setup for the last few months, as regular led lamps with no smart control. since i used a gift card for this purchase, i figured i'd just live with my lemons.
2787153
Good concept. Horrible execution. It's hard to load and impossible for small kids to pump and shoot. There are much better options available (anything else would be better).
157701
I thought this looked like a great idea. I normally use my armband running case when riding my bike, and the ability to have something on my handlebar (this can be attached to either a crossbar or stem) that I could easily access and see while riding SEEMED like a great idea. Unfortunately, the execution leaves lots to be desired.

Basically, this is a universal iPhone case, meaning my iPhone 4S didn't fit that great. It was very tight on the sides, and even with the iPhone 4 bottom attached it still didn't fit clearly within the window, meaning the home button was very hard to access.

There are also a lot of fiddly parts on this case and all feel really cheap, fragile and not long destined for easy use, especially on an outdoor product.

I had trouble getting the case to stay seated on the crossbar; i.e. still without slipping around and had to remove my iPhone's regular case to get it in. And then inserting the iPhone into the bike case, was a major pain. It was difficult to get in and even more difficult to get closed securely. I never did get it lined up so that I could access the home button and I dropped it several times. (Luckily, my case-less phone didn't shatter.)

Actually using the phone within  the case is a frustrating experience. While none of these sport cases that use clear plastic for the front are all that great, this one seems especially bad at transferring commands to the touchscreen and I could also feel the screen moving under my finger (bending, rolling). Everything took way too long to be safely operating while riding and, it seemed, more often than not the wrong command was registered in the wrong place.

Basically, this has too many parts, seems way too breakable and, while trying to work for all iPhones, fails to fit any of them very well. I'd have to say it's a big pass, especially at this price point.
2416493
This could be a terrific scanner, but it really seems to fall short in two areas.  I had high hopes when John Gruber had recommended this (or perhaps it was just a sponsor), but it fell short of my expectations to where I had to return it.

1) It feeds crooked, EVEN IF YOU USE THE GUIDE.  Yes, ensure you are aligning the item against the left edge, and that the guide on the right is adjusted appropriately.  However, there were several issues that prevented me from being successful.  First, sometimes the rollers do not catch at all.  Second, sometimes the right-side of the roller would catch prematurely, and then the document would feed in crooked.  Third, the guide would get pushed aside by the paper itself, causing it to start feeding crooked.  This is a pretty big fault, and the result was forcing me to have to adjust every item I scanned.  The product is failing to ensure I can use it successfully due to some physical design faults.

2) The battery life, especially if you use an Eye-Fi card.  I fully charged the scanner before use, and the battery gave up the ghost at 35 letter-sized pages.  I charged it up again.  It then lasted for 32.

A minor gripe is the auto-contrast boost is a bit too aggressive by default.  If you have documents that were folded (i.e. tri-folded to fit into an envelope), some of the folds result in a considerable shadow region in the resulting scan, presumably because the lighting ends up being uneven as a result.  This can mostly be mitigated by adjusting the contrast boost.

This has a lot of promise, but the first item needs to be fixed in a future iteration of the product.  The second item can be addressed with a more specific claim, or increasing the battery capacity.  For me it's not a deal-breaker, but it creates an unrealistic expectation of the product's performance.

Apparent, I know you can fix these problems.  Do so, and I'll gladly give the next version a try -- I really want one, but only if it meets my expectations.
77863
On paper, a good idea.  But the device falls far short.  The controls are tiny and confusing (e.g., you use the same button to increase the volume as you to to skip a song track).  If your fingers are wet, the controls are unusable.  You need a magnifying glass to even see which controls are which.  There is a "reset" button with no evident purpose.  Some functions (e.g., "shuffle") require the swimmer to somehow locate and simultaneously press multiple buttons to activate the featur clips for attaching the speakers to goggle straps are clumsy and hard to use.  There is a hopelessly self-contradictory system of flashing lights to tell you whether the device is turning itself on or turning itself off.  Your iTune music has to be reformatted to MP3 before it can be downloaded, and that's no simple task, either.  It's not possible to even determine whether the thing is working unless you dunk your head in the water.  The device is wildly non-intuitive.  Why can't Apple make this?  It could have been so much better.