New Gadgets and Gizmos

The bane of my existence is writing headlines for product reviews that appear on Wired.com. For an online audience, we need to throw out a lot of information — usually a product name and a description of what said product does. It’s an issue though, when the latest high definition LCD is called the BHX-1080PR2750 — that just reads like the beginning of a complicated calculus problem. And getting someone to read a review with that obtuse product name in the title? Well that’s harder than solving a complicated calculus problem.

(Photo by by jeanieforever/flickr. See, it could still be much, much worse.)

Names like iPhone, RAZR, and Voloptuator Sexamajig are iconic,
interesting, and stick in your mind. (Yes, I made that last one up.)
And many companies are starting to wake up to this fact. At CTIA this
year, we’ve noticed a good many manufacturers are dropping the awkward,
ridiculous names that have weighted down perfectly good products in the
past. Samsung, for instance, has the Alias, a handset which is a minor
upgrade from a pretty good phone that was called the U740. The U740?
Are you freaking kidding me? How is that supposed to get people excited
about your product? Alias on the other hand? Makes me think of spies
and Jennifer Garner. That’s not a bad thing.

Even Sony, notorious for naming products that sound like penal codes
(VGN-TXN1&P/T? Isn’t that federal code for stealing farm
equipment?) has come around. Hearkening back to the good old days when
its brand recognition was unchallenged (The Walkman, hello?) Sony has
decreed that its new line of multimedia brand devices will carry the
name Xperia. The first product in that line, the X1, still carries the
alpha-numeric tag, but it’s short and to the point. Baby steps, you
know?

There are still some manufacturers that insist on giving their products
weird names. Prime offender? At CTIA it would seem to be Nokia. The
N810 WiMax Tablet PC was the major announcement from the Finnish
company at this conference. And while this device may just be better
than just about any other product we’ve seen at the show so far, the
coma inducing name is not exactly a selling point. I’m no saying that
Nokia should start calling its products names like PimpPhone 5000, but
a little creativity probably wouldn’t hurt. Although I do like the ring
of PimpPhone 5000…

There is progress in product naming. My favorite device of the
conference is probably the Samsung Soul. It’s a flip phone that sports
a touchscreen that changes its icons depending on what application
you’re in. (A music player prompts media controls, camera mode brings
up buttons for snapping and editing pictures.) To me, it was the
coolest melding of great tech with a memorable moniker. Hopefully this
trend will ripple through the wireless industry and touch all brands of
consumer electronics.

Or not. Maybe I need to kick things into gear myself. I’m off to file a
patent for the Voloptuator Sexamajig. Don’t worry, it’s actually a
special alarm used to prevent farm equipment theft. But with a name
like that, I’m sure I’ll sell millions of them.