The Gizmondo was, on it’s surface, just another handheld gaming system. However, underneath that carbon-colored shell was a heck of a lot more than just a game machine. If you’re a true gadget addict, you know exactly what the word “convergence” means in terms of portable electronics. It’s the idea that eventually, we’ll be able to condense all of our various handheld gadgets into one. Most devices these days have partially reached convergence–common, cheap mobile phones have cameras built-in and some low-end phones can even play music. Then there are smartphones like the Blackberry, Treo and Apple’s iPhone that do a heck of a lot more than just letting you answer phone calls. They let you surf the web, send email, play games, and more.
This is how things are in today’s world. What if you could have convergence in a device back in 2005? Well, the Gizmondo was that device. After all, it could handle games, videos, music, had GPS, text messaging, multimedia messaging, email, over-the-air gaming and even let you surf the web. It even had an onboard camera.
Bluetooth and GPRS wireless connectivity were standard, but WiFi was said to be a feature included in the next version of the Gizmondo. The only thing it couldn’t do was make and receive voice phone calls. Of course, if the device had succeeded that could have easily have been a feature added through a software update or added along with WiFi in the next version of the device.
Of course, there wasn’t a second version of the Gizmondo and for all practical purposes there wasn’t a first version, really.
So what went wrong?
One of the main stumbling blocks was probably price. The $400US price-point seemed a little steep for a device that more or less fit in your hands. This was back in the days when only iPods were that expensive and while the Gizmondo was a handsome device, it was no iPod. Sure, consumers could get a price-break by opting for the “Smart Ads” enabled version of the handheld and watch the price drop from $400 to $229, but the system would force users to sit through three ads per day. Quite literally, the device would not let you start a game or access the GPS (or anything else) unless you had watched your ads.
On top of that, Tiger Telematics, the company that made the Gizmondo announced a widescreen version of the gadget shortly before the initial version of the device was released in the US. Odds are, this caused a lot of people to hold off on their purchase and wait for the widescreen version. Apparently, there was also little-to-no advertising being done outside of gadget communities online. Combine all of these reasons with one of the company’s executives running into some legal problems and you end up with a recipe for disaster. Tiger Telematics went bankrupt.
So a lot of things went into the failure of the device. The good news is that you can still pick up your own Gizmondo on eBay if you live in North America or the UK. Also, you can find a few people online who still use their Gizmondos and even program for them. Check out GizmondoForums.com if you’re interested in getting started. You can also learn more about the Gizmondo at Wikipedia.org.
To bad that this failed because they were definitely on the right track. I don’t remember this though. Probably because it was to expensive to think about me buying.
[...] What the Heck is a Gizmondo? [...]
It has failed because the price is too high. Maybe lowering it might give it a fighting chance. Good thing that it is still available on eBay where we have the ability to bid for a lower price.
Not everyone wants convergence, I love gadgets, but I want my phone to just be a phone and my camera to just be a very good camera etc. The more functions you combine the more problems you get.
[...] may recall a recent post, here at GadgetAddiction.com that asked the question “What the Heck is a Gizmondo?” Well, it turns out that this question was fairly prescient as apparently, sales of a device called [...]