PCMag is renowned and trusted for our Labs-based independent reviews. We review over 2,000 hardware and software products and services each year in dozens of categories and have been at it for 40 years now.
PCMag analysts work hard to let you, our readers, know about the products you plan to purchase and expect to depend on. A product that’s been reviewed here has undergone a series of defined, repeatable tests in the Labs and the real world. For product categories in which we can define performance benchmarks, we follow set scripts and look for consistent results. Everything gets rated on a five-star scale; products that check all the boxes and are the best in their categories receive the coveted title of Editors’ Choice.
But when you look at this much stuff, some items are bound to be a bit more unusual than others. Sometimes an offbeat gadget catches a reviewer’s eye and we request a loan unit; other times, strange products just find their way to us. That’s how we’ve come to review a flesh-like music mixer from the artist now known as Ye, a projector shaped like a six-pack, and a fork that warns you if you’re eating too fast.
During the review process, those of us on staff are usually privy to the behind-the-scenes commentary—or just the oohs, ahhs, and cries of dismay—from our colleagues in the Labs. For our 40th anniversary, we’re sharing our thoughts about some of the stranger things that have crossed our test benches. Some offbeat products we loved; others baffle us to this day.
1. Amazon Echo Look
Chandra Steele, Senior Features Writer
Of all the things artificial intelligence (AI) can supposedly do for humanity, dressing us isn’t high on the list. Yet in 2018, Amazon introduced the Echo Look, which would watch you while you got dressed and suggest that maybe you should take another look in your closet and choose something else. Like so many of Amazon’s fashion ventures, it was soon dropped.
Amazon Echo Look ReviewAmazon Echo Look Review
2. Amazon Glow
Eric Griffith, Features Editor
This review was a lot of fun for my son, but this product definitely pushed him to want even more screen time. And that’s OK with Amazon. Essentially, the Glow is a projector that turns a tabletop into a large interactive “touch screen.” It worked fine, but the entire time it was in use I worried that the boy or our dog would smash the $250 device by tripping over its power cord.
Amazon Glow ReviewAmazon Glow Review
3. Astrohaus Freewrite
Will Greenwald, Lead Analyst, Consumer Electronics
I love a good keyboard. I have a Das Keyboard in my home office and keep a Keychron K8 in my bag for when I’m away. I also get easily distracted by email, Slack, and other less responsible diversions on my laptop. The Astrohaus Freewrite asks, “Do you like typing on a mechanical keyboard, want to stay free of distractions, and would rather not carry around an actual typewriter and deal with the necessary scanning and optical character recognition?”
The Astrohaus Freewrite is basically a digital typewriter—a keyboard paired with a very simple computer to handle text input shown on an E Ink screen that lets the battery last for ages. It’s pretty great if your writing process is conducive to getting things down in a steady flow and leaving most of the editing for later on a real PC. It’s not ideal for my neurotically typo-correcting self. But if you just let the words stream out instead of editing as you go, it could be a good investment, and it’ll certainly catch some attention if you haul it out in a coffee shop (I write as I’m literally typing this in a coffee shop).
Astrohaus Freewrite ReviewAstrohaus Freewrite Review
4. Bud Light BL6
Will Greenwald, Lead Analyst, Consumer Electronics
This isn’t technically a product we reviewed, but I still got it in and tested it and its existence is just fascinating. The BL6 was a self-contained computer and projector in the shape of a giant six-pack of Bud Light.
Two of the cans were cooling stacks, two were actual beer holders, and two were compartments to store the Bud-branded 8Bitdo N30+ Pro controllers that came with it. Sure, the 720p projector and Microsoft Surface Pro-based computer were pretty underwhelming, but the concept was fun! It was never really sold, just offfered as a promotional point of interest.
Amazingly, the BL6 wasn’t the first time a light beer company dived into high tech. A year earlier, I tried the Miller Lite Cantroller, a gamepad that was also a can of Miller Lite.
Bud Light BL6 ReviewBud Light BL6 Review
5. Color
Jeffrey L. Wilson, Managing Editor, Apps & Gaming
In 2022, we’re accustomed to using dating apps that tap our smartphones’ location sensors to deliver profiles of people within our towns and cities. But in 2011, Color attempted to make things even more personal—and weird.
Color was a free, location-aware social networking app that let you access photos, videos, and messages in real time from other users within a 150-foot radius. This wasn’t an Instagram-like feed of people you chose to follow; the app simply displayed content from folks in your vicinity. That’s right, you could cruise down the block and potentially see pictures of people enjoying brunch, kids busting out tricks on their skateboards, or a random assault. Of course, if no one around you was using the app, Color was pretty colorless.
No, Color wasn’t a dating app, but it had the potential to be one with some creative use. In fact, with Color in hand, I combed NYC’s streets trying to find love. Spoiler alert: I didn’t.
Color (for iPhone) ReviewColor (for iPhone) Review
6. Coolest Cooler
Will Greenwald, Lead Analyst, Consumer Electronics
Ah, this is a great example of the perennial concept of just stuffing everything you can think of into a box and selling it as a tech gadget. The Coolest Cooler was a cooler (the kind you store drinks in, not the kind that keeps your CPU from bursting into flames) equipped with an internal battery and a bunch of other features. It had a Bluetooth speaker, a USB port for charging your devices, and of course a blender. Sadly, the speaker sucked, the battery was weak, and the cooler cost $400. I can give you the same thing for half the price if you don’t mind my using epoxy to keep everything together.
Coolest Cooler ReviewCoolest Cooler Review
7. Donda Stem Player
Jordan Minor, Analyst, Apps and Gaming
Reviewing an MP3 player sold by Ye (nee Kanye West) is already weird enough. But the Donda Stem Player may be the strangest piece of technology I’ve ever put my hands on. This round puck is covered in a beige, soft, smooth, squishy material that I can only describe as fake human flesh. Even better, with no screen, you control the player through, well, obscene swiping and stroking motions on its touch-sensitive surface.
As a music toy, the Donda Stem Player is actually pretty cool. You can upload songs and remix them on the fly, adjust the speed, or remove whole stems to create karaoke and a capella versions. But straight up, this is a cross between a Zune and a David Cronenberg movie.
Donda Stem Player ReviewDonda Stem Player Review
8. Doneo Castle
Neil Rubenking, Lead Analyst, Security
I review lots of antivirus programs. Most focus on the job at hand, but 2016’s Doneo Castle took a turn toward madness. Its main webpage displayed an imposing castle, and a sepulchral voice intoned the product name (“done-oh castle”) when you visited. You controlled it from a dashboard dubbed The Chamber. It worked by processing your online traffic through a VPN server (perhaps located in the dungeon) and stripping out malware. And by “worked,” I mean barely worked—I couldn’t imagine a user keeping it for what Doneo called a Happy Month, let alone a Safe Season. The review survives, but the product did not.
Doneo Castle ReviewDoneo Castle Review
9. Fossil Abacus Wrist PDA
Sascha Segan, Lead Analyst, Mobile
Like an Apple Watch but a decade earlier, the Fossil Abacus Wrist PDA put a full-fledged smartphone operating system on your wrist—third-party apps and all. But it arrived way before its time. For one thing, finger-friendly capacitive touchscreens didn’t exist in 2005, so you had to poke at the UI with a tiny, toothpick-like stylus that slotted into the clasp of the watch. And naturally, the Fossil didn’t have wireless connectivity. The Abacus Wrist PDA felt like version 0.1 of the future—and of course, it was.
Fossil Abacus Wrist PDA ReviewFossil Abacus Wrist PDA Review
10. Hapilabs Hapifork
Alex Colon, Executive Editor, Reviews
Simply put, the $99 Hapifork from Hapilabs was a fork that zapped you when you ate too fast. OK, it was more of a vibration than a zap, but the goal was to get you to eat slower, which could reduce health problems such as digestive problems, gastric reflux, and weight gain. And it worked—looking back at what I wrote in 2014, the Hapifork did indeed force me to stop, think, and slow down.
But using the same fork to eat all your meals simply isn’t practical, not to mention the fact that you eat and drink things other than solid food. The demand for battery-powered forks never materialized, so it didn’t quite catch on. Useful? Sort of. Odd? Most definitely.
Hapilabs Hapifork ReviewHapilabs Hapifork Review
11. Ion Wireless Air Mouse and Peregrine Glove
Brian Westover, Lead Analyst, Hardware
I’ve got a two-for-one entry for the weirdest thing I’ve reviewed: A few years ago, I put together a big guide to gaming peripherals, which was mostly about normal accessories like mice. But I also used the roundup as an excuse to fetch some oddball products. The two that stuck out were the $79.95 Ion Wireless Air Mouse and the $149.99 Peregrine Glove keyboard—two glove-style gadgets that were both just lousy.
Ion Wireless Air Mouse ReviewIon Wireless Air Mouse Review
Peregrine Glove ReviewPeregrine Glove Review
12. Iriver Blank Sound Donut
Jamie Lendino, Executive Editor, Features
The Iriver Blank Sound Donut was a small conference-room-style speaker for calls that doubled as a Bluetooth music speaker in a pinch. It also had a hole in it, which explains part of the weird, and frankly terrible, name. Today we’re used to small speakers with surprisingly big sound. But in 2012, this device served a different market: those who needed a Bluetooth speakerphone, back when we still made voice calls instead of using Zoom.
Iriver Blank Sound Donut ReviewIriver Blank Sound Donut Review
13. Kovert Designs Altruis
Chandra Steele, Senior Features Writer
The Kovert Designs Altruis was a smart ring with the admirable goal of getting you to look at your phone less. The ring buzzed to alert you of text messages or emails—not all of them, only those from contacts or with keywords that you specified as important. Unfortunately, it didn’t always work, and its focus on mindfulness made it less robust than its competitor Ringly, which offered a much wider variety of alerts. Ring-based wearables used to be a fairly competitive market segment with numerous innovative, fashion-forward designs, and I miss it.
Kovert Designs Altruis ReviewKovert Designs Altruis Review
14. Lomography Konstruktor
Jim Fisher, Lead Analyst, Cameras
I’ve reviewed a lot of cameras—enough to have lost count—but none have challenged my less-than-dexterous fingers more than the Lomography Konstruktor, a plastic fantastic 35mm SLR that you needed to build yourself before using.
Made for STEM students, Lego fans, and the sadists among us who enjoy putting Ikea products together, the Konstruktor guaranteed you’d know a lot more about how the inside of a mechanical camera works by the time you took your first photo.
I looked at the Konstruktor back in 2014, but it’s still available today for around $40—Lomography tends to keep its off-the-beaten-path wares around long after most products disappear. If you want to try it out, be prepared for some frustration unless you’re mechanically inclined. I spent a few hours tinkering, pulling apart tiny pieces of plastic, and connecting gears and other intricate pieces as part of my review. It went well until I tried to use the camera—I’d messed it up and it just didn’t work.
The company took pity on me and sent an assembled camera so I could take a few test photos. The images were as soft and low-fi as you’d expect, hammering home that the real point of the Konstruktor was its construction.
Lomography Konstruktor ReviewLomography Konstruktor Review
15. Lytro Light Field Camera
Jim Fisher, Lead Analyst, Cameras
Was there ever a weirder (or worse) idea for a camera than the original Lytro? The pocketable point-and-shoot promised to snap photos that you could refocus after the fact, using tech the company called Light Field Photography. But the Lytro’s head-turning industrial design made the camera an ergonomic nightmare to use, and once you got past the gimmick of changing the original focus you noticed just how bad the picture quality was.
The Lytro made a huge splash in the blogosphere, but we weren’t fooled. We called out the camera for its poor handling and image quality in a two-star review in 2012, recommending that our readers save the $400.
The market agreed, and the OG Lytro and its follow-up the Illum both flopped. The company shuttered its photo-hosting servers in 2017, so there’s no way to share refocusable photos online, but the system enthusiasts at Lytro Meltdown continue to offer support via home-brew software solutions.
Lytro Light Field Camera ReviewLytro Light Field Camera Review
16. Nokia 7280 (The Lipstick Phone)
Sascha Segan, Lead Analyst, Mobile
They weren’t always identical slabs—before 2009 or so, cell phones came in a wild, insane, brilliant array of shapes and sizes. We had sliders, swivels, flips, makeup cases, and even a line of “lipstick” phones: the impractical but adorable Nokia 7280 and 7380. Both looked like pieces of jewelry or at least fashion accessories, and they used a scroll wheel instead of a number pad or touch screen to enter data. Nothing looks like them today. Nobody would dare.
Nokia 7280 ReviewNokia 7280 Review
17. Nokia 7705 Twist
Jamie Lendino, Executive Editor, Features
Back in the 2000s, I reviewed hundreds of cell phones, MP3 players, and other bits of consumer electronics for PCMag. One that sticks out in my memory was another odd Nokia phone (and another product with a hole in it).
The top portion of the Nokia 7705 swiveled to reveal a roomy QWERTY keyboard, back when those were still huge. Like the 7280 mentioned above, the 7705 marked a time when phone manufacturers took big risks, at least before the world converged on rectangles with capacitive touch screens.
Nokia 7705 Twist ReviewNokia 7705 Twist Review
18. Pivot Yoga
Angela Moscaritolo, Senior Analyst, Fitness and Smart Home
Being a yoga practitioner and teacher, I was intrigued when I started seeing Facebook ads for Pivot Yoga, so I naturally scheduled a review.
From smartwatches and fitness trackers to safety jewelry and smart glasses, we review a lot of wearable technologies here at PCMag, but connected clothing is far less common. Pivot Yoga is a $99 smart shirt and pants set that aims to teach budding yogis proper form and reduce their risk of injury. The outfit features 16 hidden motion sensors that track your movements and wirelessly connect to a companion app to give you real-time alignment feedback on demand.
Unfortunately, I found the clothes were uncomfortably tight, the battery packs were bulky, the Pivot app was glitchy, and the suggestions and corrections were sometimes confusing. While the entire experience left much to be desired, the idea behind Pivot Yoga is a good one. Not every person has the money for private lessons or feels comfortable asking a teacher for help in a group setting, so a product like this—with major improvements—could be an excellent resource for those starting out on the yoga path.
Pivot Yoga ReviewPivot Yoga Review
19. Playdate
Will Greenwald, Lead Analyst, Consumer Electronics
The Playdate is the most recent weird thing I’ve tested, and it’s up there with the weirdest. It’s a monochrome handheld game system with a crank, which is strange because the year is neither 1988 nor 1908.
The Playdate is an odd little darling of gamers more whimsical than me. Although I appreciate it for what it is, I don’t really think it clicks as something worth buying to use (rather than buying to own, I say as I nervously eye my collection of game cartridges and vinyl single of “I’ll Keep Coming” by Low Roar from the Death Stranding soundtrack).
The crank doesn’t power the system as you might expect, but serves as a one-axis analog control input which offers some fascinating effects such as focusing a camera in Casual Birder or moving a robot back and forth through time in Crankin’s Time Travel Adventure—a game I didn’t at first realize was designed by Keita Takahashi of Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy fame. Learning that explained so much.
Playdate ReviewPlaydate Review
20. PlusDeck 2c PC Cassette Deck
John Burek, Executive Editor, PCMag Lab Director
Remember when desktop PCs had more 5.25-inch drive bays than we knew what to fill them with? Remember when having multiple writable CD or DVD drives was a thing, to enable disc-to-disc copying? (Well, maybe that was just me.) I may be lost in a haze of audio nostalgia, but what remains stuck in my mind after all these years is the PlusDeck 2c, a 5.25-inch drive bay device that let you turn your hokey, hissy old audio cassettes into MP3 files. I liked it enough to buy one, and it’s still taking up space in my big main desktop PC, even though it doesn’t see much action these days.
Sure, we all saw those USB turntables that let you digitize your old vinyl back in the day (and make vinyl’s recent resurgence kind of ironic). Cassettes have yet to see the same kind of retro-audio love, and at the time of the PlusDeck (the mid-2000s) all anyone wanted to do with cassettes was get rid of them, perhaps ripping a few sentimental mixtapes or open-air concert recordings to digital format before they hit the bin.
The PlusDeck lets you do that. Yes, you could plug your cassette Walkman or your stereo system and dual-cassette deck into an input on your PC sound card and do much the same thing. But the PlusDeck did it weirdly: It turned the front panel of your PC into the dash of a 1990s Chevy, with a longways cassette-loader slot and a couple of controls for fast forward and rewind, plus some crude Windows 98 software that acted as a recording panel for your cassette epics.
I moved many dozens of concert cassettes into the digital realm using the PlusDeck. And even after Windows left it behind, it stayed in my tower PC as a sentimental friend. It still works, basically, like a Walkman embedded in my big old desktop dinosaur, waiting for cassettes to make their triumphant low-fi comeback. Now, if only I still could find the Thermaltake X-Ray, the infamous combined drive-bay cigarette lighter and cupholder accessory I was using around the same time. (Actually, you can still get it, it seems.)
Note: These reviews appeared in the print edition of our sister publication Computer Shopper and have been lost to time.
21. Pwnie Express Pwn Pro
Max Eddy, Senior Analyst, Security
The Pwnie Express Pwn Pro was the second iteration of this cybersecurity device we reviewed. We loved it the first time around, but were concerned that it was actually too potent to have such a low price point. The next time we looked at it, the Pwn Pro had a spiffy new paint job, an impressive enterprise-security back end, and a price appropriate to its power.
The box is good for two things: passively surveilling an area and doing penetration testing. We didn’t test the latter, since penetration testing is basically ethical cyberattacks (carried out with permission) intended to uncover weaknesses in your system. But the passive surveillance turns the device into a giant Sauron flaming eyeball that let us see any chatty device that came within about 1,000 feet of our office.
In one case, we caught some Nintendo Streetpass codes. In another, we could analyze the Wi-Fi networks that a passer-by’s phone previously connected to, giving us insight into their movements. For a few days, the Pwn Pro let us feel like the hacker on the heist team.
Pwnie Express Pwn Pro ReviewPwnie Express Pwn Pro Review
22. Quirky Porkfolio
Alex Colon, Executive Editor, Reviews
I’m pretty sure I wanted to review this one based on the name alone. The Porkfolio from Quirky (RIP) was a connected piggy bank. It would automatically count any change you placed inside, and it used Wi-Fi to send your balance to an app where you could keep track of up to $100 in cold, hard coins.
That’s pretty much all it did, so looking back, it’s a wonder I was able to write more than 1,000 words about it. But seeing the Porkfolio again reminds me that even though it was far from the most practical smart home product we’ve seen, it was definitely one of the most charming.
Quirky Porkfolio ReviewQuirky Porkfolio Review
23. Razer Zephyr
Eric Griffith, Features Editor
I wanted to review the Razer Zephyr face mask because I worked very hard to buy it, spending multiple hours on multiple nights attempting to make the purchase as if it were an Xbox. Like most masks you see in movies, it looks cool. But after wearing it for a while, you feel like a dork.
I could live with that, but I should h
ave pushed back more on Razer’s claims about the Zephyr being N95-compliant. Thankfully, my colleague Sascha Segan did hold the company’s feet to the fire, and Razer rescinded those claims. That said, I still feel like the Zephyr is a much safer mask, at least anecdotally. It’s airtight compared with any cloth or paper I wrap around my bearded mouth-hole. When I want to get stared at by strangers, nothing beats activating its lights and loud fans and wearing it around Wegmans.
Razer Zephyr ReviewRazer Zephyr Review
24. Sensoria Fitness Smart Socks
Jill Duffy, Deputy Managing Editor, Software
Around 2014-2015, fitness trackers took hold of the consumer market, and a handful of forward-thinking companies started pioneering other types of wearables. One was Sensoria. Its smart socks sounded silly, but when I slid them on, they proved plush, comfortable, and eager to give me feedback about my running form. Though certainly not an impulse buy at $199 for two pairs of socks, one data-transmitting ankle cuff, and a charger, they were high-quality enough to make me wonder whether dedicated runners might actually buy them.
Laden with sensors woven into the fabric, the smart socks measured pressure to determine whether you were heel-striking or landing on the ball of your foot while running. The ankle cuff snapped magnetically into place to capture speed, pace, and other running metrics. While you ran, a companion app could play a metronome to help you maintain a cadence. Though they were a little wacky and undoubtedly for a niche audience, I loved testing and writing about the Smart Socks, and I hope the company comes up with other wearables that expand our idea of the market.
Sensoria Fitness Smart Socks ReviewSensoria Fitness Smart Socks Review
25. Sensoria Fitness Sports Bra
Jill Duffy, Deputy Managing Editor, Software
If you’ve ever worn a chest-strap heart-rate monitor together with a sports bra, surely you’ve contemplated merging the two. Many have tried, and among the first I knew about was Sensoria. The company’s heart-monitor sports bra changed my impression of what wearables could be.
Sensoria is still in the business of making smart clothing, but its first attempt at a sports bra felt more like a prototype than a finished product, with an awkward fit and stiff fabric. With Sensoria’s signature textile electrodes woven into the underside of the lower band, the bra cost $89, which doesn’t seem unreasonable for a great sports bra, but you had to bring your own Bluetooth heart rate monitor to clip into it. Since the bra never took off among the masses, I don’t have much hope that it will now, but it should. It’s a smart idea that just needs a little more tweaking.
Sensoria Fitness Sports Bra ReviewSensoria Fitness Sports Bra Review