worst

Best and worst phones of 2010

Though it's not quite the end of the year, the new cell phone releases for 2010 are beginning to wind down. So as December lurches on, we take this opportunity to look back at the mobile year that was. Since January, CNET's cell phone reviews team has reviewed almost 200 handsets. Some were fantastic, some were awful, and the rest fell somewhere in between.

Since the two extremes are the most interesting, we offer a review of the best and worst phones of 2010. These photo galleries do not include smartphones--Bonnie Cha will follow up with those lists next week--but they do include the shining stars and darkest pits of despair that we encountered on the regular cell phone beat.… Read more

The decade's 30 biggest tech flops

First, an admission. We ran this same story last year with many of the same picks. At the time, several readers said we were not only wrong for running it, but were downright ignorant.

As elbrado67 so eloquently put it:

We still have another year left in the decade, I would expect more from a "tech" site to be scientifically correct. You start counting with "1," not "0." Despite popular belief on the news and everywhere else, the new "Millennium" started in 2001, not 2000. Please stop dumbing everything down.

Many others … Read more

Smartphone ads 2010: Clunkers and blockbusters

With all the millions of dollars that manufacturers and mobile operators pour into advertising their flagship smartphones, you'd think more commercials would be hits. But we all know better than that. For every poignant or entertaining ad there are five more duds that fail to entertain, or elicit any sort of emotional response.

Take 2010, for instance. There have been few memorable campaigns, not all of them good, and many more that amounted to expensive TV noise. It casts a shadow on Apple's advertisers that one of the year's best commercials was an Internet-viral Jane Lynch parody … Read more

Car Tech Live 193: Worst mpg cars of 2011 (podcast)

Which 2011 car gets the worst miles per gallon? GE makes the biggest electric car order in history, a speed camera that busts you for way more than your speed, and we drive the all-new 2011 Jeep Grand Cherokee.

Subscribe with iTunes (audio) Subscribe with iTunes (video) Subscribe with RSS (audio) Subscribe with RSS (video) EPISODE 193 SHOW NOTES

• 2011 EPA MPG lists are outLINKTEXT

• GE makes biggest electric car order ever

• We spy the 2011 Hyundai Elantra before it's out

• Most diabolical speed camera ever

• CNET's LA Auto Show preview

• CNET's LOL cars gallery!

Browsing, for your eyes only

We all have reasons for craving our privacy, some more socially questionable than others. No matter. As a computer user, it's within your power (and your rights, darnit!) to keep your browsing from others' eyes, be they actively prying or innocently perusing.

Here's the good news. Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Opera all contain a private browsing mode that won't leave tracks as you intrepidly explore the Web. That's excellent if you're trying to keep your activities under wraps, but unfortunate if you accidentally forget to switch back and forth as you transition from your … Read more

The best (and worst) laptop keyboards

Chances are you're pretty familiar with the keyboard on your laptop. Despite any design flaws, you've mastered its intricacies and acclimated to its limitations. But when it's time to look for a new laptop, unless you're sticking to essentially the same model, there'll be a whole new keyboard to get used to--and a rash decision could saddle you with a layout that leaves your fingers twisted in a knot.

If only you had access to a couple of experts who regularly try out several new laptops every week. Then they could use their wide-ranging laptop … Read more

Top 5 worst downloads of 2009

CNET Download's Seth Rosenblatt just dug himself out of the avalanche of software that his team reviews every year. And in his hand was a list of the worst downloads of the year.

And he's willing to share. By worst this year, Seth means the biggest failures, so the coding, presentation, and features of these apps might be decent, but they let us and their customers down in a big way.

Go watch the video, listen to the trivia question, then come back here and post your comments and answer below. We'll draw a random name from … Read more

CNET's worst cell phones of 2009

We've already offered you the best smartphones and best cell phones of 2009, so you know that we couldn't end the year without picking the worst handsets as well. In this case, we didn't just pick the 10 phones with the lowest ratings; we did take ratings into account, but we also selected the models that disappointed us the most.

The following handsets, which are listed in no particular order, failed on a variety of fronts. Some had terrible performance, while others had poor designs. We didn't consider phones that simply had few features--that wouldn't … Read more

The worst video games of 2009

We've already shared our picks for the best games of 2009, so now it's time to check out the other end of the spectrum: the worst games of the year.

Before you jump over to the slideshow, we want to preface our list with a few important details. Our worst-of compilation doesn't include just games; it highlights some of the most disappointing hardware and trends that surfaced in 2009 as well.

So with that knowledge absorbed, we invite you to check out our picks for the worst that 2009 had to offer in the world of video … Read more