Pink Gadgets
The pink gadget hall of shame.
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Hello, Computer Kitty
You cannot escape Hello Kitty. The cutesy icon bedecks everything from toasters to (gapingly expensive) jewelry, so of course the smiley pink feline has a strong presence in girly-computing land. Why anyone would pay $49.99 for a 4-gb, bedazzled USB drive with Hello Kitty on it when you can purchase a serviceable, and not so unattractive, one for $11 is something that I can’t comprehend—but then again, I am known to wear flip-flops in public.
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Who You Callin’ “Techie”?
For a whopping $70, ChicBud, which bills itself as offering “fashion-forward electronics,” will happily send you the appallingly named “techie girl kit.” “Kit” is something of a misnomer, since it contains just two items—a charge-and-sync cable for your iPod/iPhone and a stereo cable. A genuine “techie girl” would surely want her kit to contain a few more items—perhaps a flash drive, a surge protector, some monitor wipes—oh, and a nail file, for when you break a nail while typing, of course.
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Pretty Useless
StyleSynch, the company that brought us the Hello Kitty USB drive, doesn’t limit its Swarovski crystals to character-driven products—they also bedeck these blinged-out earbuds ($19.99) and computer mouse ($79.99). Customers beware: The earbud decorations look like they could peel off at any second, and the palm imprint left from that mouse probably won’t be pretty.
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What in the World Is a Digital Clutch?
HP’s digital clutch, created with Vivienne Tam, is supposed to be “for the modern woman on the go”—a slogan straight out of Mad Men. “It's a definite ‘do’ for the fashion-forward, trend-setting woman who wants to elevate her digital capabilities while accentuating her keen sense of style,” HP gushes—without mentioning, exactly, what this mini computer does. Is it a netbook? How will it actually help a woman keep her life organized while matching her shoes?
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Fashionable = Pink
When an electronics company uses the word fashionable, you know that the product is being pitched to the female crowd. The Times of London reported over the summer that “70 per cent of women feel ignored by the booming consumer electronics market.” Apparently Memorex thinks the best way to make a woman feel included is to shower her with pink. Are there female consumers who want their gadgets pink? Of course. But there must be a way to appeal to women without just slapping a plastic cover on the same old gadget.
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A Not-So-Nice Try, Dell
In May, Dell unveiled “Della,” a website for women whose Tech Tips page, says Engadget, included “ ‘finding recipes,’ ‘counting calories,’ and blissing out to ‘guided meditations.’ ” Advertising Age’s Teressa Iezzi pleaded with marketers to apply a simple test to their lady-friendly products: “Would the scenario you're depicting look like bad sketch comedy if the gender was switched? If the answer is yes, maybe you need to step back and think some more.” Two weeks after Della’s launch, Dell pulled the plug.
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Computer Cologne
For the lady who wants more perfume samples in her women’s magazines, there’s the Asus fragrance notebook, in floral blossom, musky black, aqua ocean, and morning dew. The machines themselves are fairly robust and come with respectable specs (considering that they came out in 2008), but there is one problem: The scent seems to be located near the fan, so as the laptop heats up, the scent becomes more powerful.
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8 of 8 Cell Phone Interference
For the girl who has everything, and wants us to know it, there’s the special-edition Sony Ericcson Jalou by Dolce & Gabbana, which, the advertising copy tells us, is “shorter than a lipstick” and “easy to slip into the tiniest clutch.” Oh yeah, and it’s pink.
