Battery time (two AAAs, please) is 15 hours and you can preset 20 FM and 10 AM stations. It self-activates sleep mode and can remember the last station you tuned in to. All that for $50. [Uber-Review]

Totally against my will, the missus dragged me along to Bed Bath & Beyond a couple of weekends ago. (Insert whip-cracking sound effects, wise guys.) It was every bit as horrific as I'd feared—I must lack whatever gene enables some folks to swoon over Casabella all-purpose gloves. Oh, and I had to miss the Mavs-Suns game in the name of stocking up on overpriced cleaning supplies. Brutal, just brutal.

The day's one saving grace came as we trudged toward the checkout line. To the right of the cash registers was a rack of low-end gadgets, of the sort you'd ordinarily find at an exceptionally raggedy Radio Shack. There was a USB minifan for five bucks (brand name: "Cool Breeze"), a host of Bandai-style LCD games, and quite possibly the flimsiest iPod speakers known to man. The cake-taker, however, was the Zadro iSing Shower Radio (pictured at right), which hits all the low-end high points. Shameless attempt to leech off the iPod's celebrity? Check. Using the "wow" factor of water resistance to mask otherwise craptacular craftsmanship? Check. Under a Hamilton? Yep—a lovely $9.99.

Now, absolutely no one goes to Bed Bath & Beyond looking for electro-dreck. These products were rather impulse buys, to be tossed in a shopper's cart just before she pays for a bevy of pillows and spatulas. In other words, here was strong evidence that gadgets are quickly morphing into the new ChapStick.

And that strikes me as sort of a big deal.

This wasn't the first time I'd noticed low-end electronics being hawked in a store where you wouldn't expect to find 'em, and near the cashiers to boot. Last month, while shopping for irregular tube socks at T.J. Maxx, I came across a shelf stuffed with ear buds and, oddly, large-buttoned remote controls—items that had obviously fallen off the proverbial truck. I didn't notice any takers, but T.J. Maxx (I suspect) isn't run by cretins; I'm sure someone at corporate headquarters was tipped off that, after a long hour or two of trying on size XXXL sweatpants, your average shopper may be unusually open to the idea of replacing their iPod's ear buds.

The obvious moral here is that consumers have grown inured to the ever decreasing lifespans of gadgets. I don't want to dump on the iPod too much, but I shudder to think what Apple's done to the next generation's expectations regarding how long a $300 piece of hardware should last. If no one expects a fancy MP3 player to survive much beyond the warranty's expiration, then what are they supposed to expect out of a USB beverage warmer? Or a shower radio? You've got the admire the sinister genius at work among the tech industry's powers-that-be. We've been conditioned to assume that low-end means low-qual, an equation that needn't necessarily be true.

But you've also got to consider—and, perhaps, lament—how quickly the satisfaction of buying a new gadget tends to dissipate. The thing about impulse buys like ChapStick, nail clippers, and breath mints is that folks get them even when they haven't exhausted their previous supply. That's the beauty of impulse items, at least from the vendor's standpoint—I mean, how many tubes of ChapStick or tins of Altoids do you have lying around? Probably a lot more than you need at any given moment. But we keep snatching them off the checkout-line rack anyway, looking for that quick hit of pleasure—"Hey, new nail clippers! Life is worth living!"

For us geeks with deep pockets and short arms, new low-end gadgets tend to elicit the same joyful, albeit very brief, reaction. You take home your $4.99 football remote control, use it that night, then wake up the next morning feeling slightly okay—the same buzz you might feel the day after your team wins the Super Bowlwinning $5 on a lottery scratcher. But the ecstasy fades quickly, even if the remote control works as advertised. You'd learn your lesson if it cost more but, hey, $4.99? You can barely get a decent Long John Silver's value basket combo for that. And so the impulse buying continues.

Not that I'm grumbling too much—I'm all for the free market, and people are obviously voting with their wallets if a chain like Bed Bath & Beyond sees fit to hawk iBlaster Retractable Ear Buds for $9.99. But as a controversial, now-legendary Gizmodo Ombudsman column once opined, perhaps it's wise to resist the urge to buy everything on God's green Earth that contains a circuit board. This is precisely what The Man wants you to do, which is why the iSing is positioned, Siren-like, near the Bed Bath & Beyond cash register. He knows your baser geek instincts will take over once confronted with such a novelty.

I was thisclose to heeding the Siren's call at Bed Bath & Beyond, but I didn't give in. Not that I'm calling myself a hero or anything, but I did save five bucks by resisting the urge. And I'm thus that much closer to finally having enough to buy that Apple TV thingamajig that's been haunting my dreams. And when that happy day arrives, man, that'll be a hit of rapture that a zillion iSings couldn't equal.

And, no, I don't expect my Apple TV to last more than a few days beyond the warranty's expiration. I just can't help myself on this one, and I'll bet you can't, either.

(By the way, if you ever see a low-end gadget positioned as an impulse item, please snap a camphone pic and let me know. Or just take the easy way out and share your finds in comments.)

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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Press Release [via Electronista]

Product Page [via Shiny Shiny]

Product Page [Via Coolest-Gadget]

Of all the lame Christmas gifts I've received over the years, two stand out in my memory as particularly egregious. The first was a Manhattan Transfer album, the awfulness of which requires no further description from these quarters. The second? A shower radio that assuredly cost its giver less than a tenner. I know, I know, it's the thought that counts. But when poor reception limits your showertime musical entertainment to a station that specializes in airing the devilish wailings of sackless lite-rock crooners, my holiday spirit flushes away like so much corn-flecked dung.

Not that I'm philosophically opposed to the concept of shower radios, and I realize that there are some groovy options out there. But let's face reality here: sub-$10 shower radios of dubious quality are too often the gearhead's equivalent of a lump o' coal—yes, even if they're shaped like Shrek. After the jump, a brief history of this water-resistant gadget's transformation into the fruitcake of geekdom. PLUS: Spammers aren't nearly as smart as you think.

Let's start by rewinding to a glorious year: 1984, when the Olympics came to my hometown and Ghostbusters rightfully reigned supreme at the box office. It's also the year when, to the best of my knowledge, executoy catalogue Hammacher Schlemmer first offered the WetTunes, the granddaddy of semi-affordable shower radios. Powered by a 9-volt battery, the WetTunes was pretty revolutionary at the time—we'd all grown up learning that radio plus bathtub equals death, so the product gave me a newfound sense of faith in technology's ability to solve all of humanity's pressing problems. Alas, priced at $30 (c. $58 in today's dollars), the WetTunes was too expensive for my dad; I think he got me some knock-off Gobots instead.

Shower radios stayed high-end for a few years then, with Sony (of course) entering the fray with a technologically superior, ridiculously overpriced model: the ICF-S77W (c. $89 in today's dollars). But then you saw the boom in home-shopping channels, the perfect medium through which to sell shower radios. See, here's what I've figured out about the likes of HSN and QVC when it comes to electronics: they don't care a jot about specs, what they need is a superficial "wow" factor. And waterproofing is a cheap, easily understandable wow. Heck, here's a little free advice, guys—waterproof a 13-inch TV by encasing it in plastic, and advertise it as "the first TV you can watch in the tub!" You'll sell out within minutes.

All of a sudden, you had shower radios crashing below the $20 barrier, then the $10 barrier. The fact of the matter is that waterproofing—or, more accurately, water resistance—is pretty straightforward: have your Guangdong factory make a mold for the case, then crank those puppies out en masse. (There may be an FCC approval step here that I'm missing, but I don't have much faith in that particular agency's regulatory zeal nowadays, for better or for worse.)

The problem with gadgets that sell on gimmicks, of course, is that they have no incentive to, y'know, make the blasted thing work as advertised. The GearToGo's and Sentrya's of the world know that these sub-$10 units are purchased by-and-large for novelty purposes, or as gifts. They depend on the receiver of said gifts to be so amazed by the fact that he can actually listen to the radio in the shower without being electrocuted, he won't really mind when his audio choices are limited to a half-dozen Clear Channel atrocities.

Thing is, this is 2006, and such wowable consumers are a dying breed. In an age in which even Jessica Simpson namechecks HDTV video modes in commercials, shower radios float relatively few boats. So how about all us skinflint gearheads make a vow this year, in order to end the madness once and for all: if we are given a shower radio, we will kindly tell the giver that, while the thought appreciated, such craptacular electronics no longer have a place in our society.

Then, for dramatic effect, the radio in question should be thrown upon the ground and stomped into smithereens, in plain view of the giver who thought he/she was being oh-so-clever by spending $5.03 on such a gee-whiz gadget. Sounds heartless, I realize, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Who's with me?

BEHIND THE TIMES: Spammers are known for baiting potential dupes with absurdly good deals—mortgage rates of 2.15 percent and the like. So what to make of a recent spam I got from "USB Stick Factory", advertising a 1-gig Flash memory drive for $12.99? That's a decent price, for sure, but come on—I can easily get an identically sized drive from xPCGear.com (and lots of other legitimate joints) for just seven bucks more. Us low-enders are concerned about price, sure, but a $7 price differential isn't worth the gamble.

So, note to Douglas Ching, who identifies himself in this spam as "marketing manager, Starline International Group": you gotta keep up with the times and slash those tease prices, my friend. No one's gonna gamble on your goods unless they can save at least 75 percent by rolling the spam dice.

NEXT WEEK: Last-minute gift guide for that not-so-special someone in your life.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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Sure, it's no Duck Fadar, and I'd prefer it in basically any color than lavender, but I'd still waste a hard-earned $3.99 on one just to tell people, "Hey, I've got a duck with a freakin' radio inside!" – Mark Wilson

Product Page [firststreet]

When a whiskey-addled Van Morrison first belted out the above lyrics in 1967, he was trying to come to terms with a long-ago love—a brown-eyed girl obliging enough to give him quickies behind some East Belfast stadium, apparently. Yet Van was also celebrating the giddy 1962 high of realizing that, thanks to the wizards at Texas Instruments, Sony, and other electronics titans, you no longer had to hang at your parent's house in order to enjoy some choice AM nuggets. You could, indeed, play music while drinking beer down the old mine. The only prerequisite was a pal rich enough to buy a cheap Japanese transistor radio, which ran around $20—$123 or so in today's dollars.

A transistor radio nowadays, of course, is about as low-end a gadget imaginable—the Sony pictured at right goes for less than $13, putting it well within the price range of just about everyone. But who buys transistor radios anymore? Tell a girl that your idea of the perfect date is pumping Hot 97 on a Sony ICF-S10MK2, and your odds of removing her pants someday descend to absolute zero—what a simpler time you grew up in, Van.

Still, the likes of Sony and Panasonic ain't dumb, and there's obviously a market for these things. So who's keeping the transistor-radio fires burning, and are they an endangered species? Read on, brothers and only friends, read on. PLUS: GSM phone recs for a reader headed for the Middle East?

The Paranoid At least two, and possibly three, generations of electronics consumers were raised to believe that any bomb-shelter or disaster-preparedness kit should include a transistor radio. I can clearly remember learning this in elementary school, when everyone quite earnestly believed that a nuclear exchange with the Soviets was right around the corner—don't laugh, young'uns, until you consider what it must've been like to see The Day After as a nine-year-old. The idea was that, in the event my hometown of Los Angeles was turned into an apocalyptic wasteland rife with looting and zombies, our family would be able to receive news updates regarding just how screwed we really were.

Don't get me wrong, I sort of get this mindset—in the event of a true catastrophe, it'd be nice to know where I might be able to snag a Red Cross meal, or which highways are still open. But given the abundance of multi-function gadgets that feature AM/FM capabilities—a lot of digital audio players, for example—should I really invest in a dedicated transistor radio just for emergency purposes? Anyone who grew up during the Cuban Missile Crisis probably disagrees with me, though, which is why I'm willing to bet a lot of transistor radio buyers are on the north side of 50—and probably still quite leery of a Soviet comeback.

Baseball Fans I actually saw the Panasonic RF-P50 (below right) advertised expressly for this market—the radio was in the window of a discount electronics store on 14th Street, above a star-shaped sign reading "Great for the Ballpark!" Again, I don't see the wisdom in buying a radio-only unit like the RF-P50 when, for a few bucks more, you can get the radio capabilities integrated into a more versatile gadget. But aging baseball fans who grew up marveling at fellow spectators listening to the radio broadcasts? For them, there's still something magical about the humble transistor radio and the one-piece earphone—it's as much a part of the going-to-the-ballpark experience as 64-ounce beers and paying $29.95 for parking. Plus, if some drunken fan knocks your RF-P50 to the ground by accident, no worries—it's only $13, which is about what it costs to buy a hot dog at Shea Stadium nowadays.

Hopeless Radio Geeks The Japanese word otaku deserves far more usage in the West—we English speakers don't have a similar word that so succinctly conveys the obsessive jags of some smart-yet-maladjusted folks. Like trainspotters or model-railroad enthusiasts, radio geeks have a curious fixation on everything to do with the RF portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. That usually means ham radios and the like, but there continues to be an inexplicable fascination with low-end gear, too. Countless forums are filled with comparison tests between $10 transistor radios and pricier living-room units, with the former often winning the Battle of Reception. Believe me, there are few happier souls on this planet than the radio geek who just discovered he can pick up an FM station in a different time zone if he adjusts the antenna on his transistor unit just like so.

What's the common thread between all these consumers? I've gotta say it's age—I just don't think you're going to see many under-30s buying transistor radios. That's in large part because radio is a common feature on MP3 players and Walkmen knock-offs, but also because there's no wow factor in the technology—in the era of the baby cellphone, getting AM/FM reception for twelve bucks ain't all that.

Kinda sad, as the Van Morrison lyric at this column's top so neatly encapsulates the thrill of technology, a thrill that seems pretty hard-to-come-by in today's more electronics-saturated world. I mean, is there a "Brown Eyed Girl" of the iPod Era, a song that conveys the high of that first time you realized you could fit 4,000 songs in your pocket? Tips in comments or via e-mail, please.

HELP JEFF OUT: I didn't get into this business to help people. But every once in a while, I get an e-mail appeal so moving, I can help but shed a tear and led a hand. So here goes: A devoted LET reader is traveling to the Middle East this winter, and asks the following: "In lieu of getting an unlocked Razr, do you have any
suggestions for a good, reliable, compact, unlocked quadband GSM phone for me
to travel with?" I'm both too cheap and too lazy to pass along any worthy advice, so I'm leaving it up to y'all—leave tips in comments.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.

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Product Page [Via Ubergizmo]

Beautiful Genus Type-R radio [Retrothing]

They're manufacturing these soon, but you can sign-up for a pre-order. If you're a heavy sleeper, this might do the trick. It might also make you mad. – John Biggs

Product Page [PatternClock]

For example, USRP's creator, Eric Blossom, and his partner Matt Ettus are working on a passive radar system that creates a map based on radio waves coming from various sources. They're selling their creations and have a daughterboard available for $550. The potential is pretty amazing, especially considering the current glut of wireless gear out there.

Product Page [Ettus]
GNU Radio Opens an Unseen World [Wired]

While our prurient streak says "Hell yes!" or practical side says "Dude, your mom could be in the shower. Freakout." The site also features other hidden cameras including some waterproof cameras and these cool little pinhole screw-head cameras. Also be sure to check out the browser title featuring potential uses for the camera.

Product Page [Spycamman]

Lexon Rubber Radio [Popgadget]

This radio uses one of the new multi-colored LEDs and can cycle through all sorts of sexy hues. The UI is pretty cool, too. You just tip the thing over to change colors, which is kind of what happened after they tipped me off the roof of KDR. Plus, it's only $14.99, so whatevs.

Product Page [Source CC via Uberreivew]

Insignia: Mark of the Least

I trust I'm not alone in dreading my semi-regular trips to Best Buy. The haphazard selection of products can be truly maddening, and many of the blue-shirted sales clerks need to get with the program. Don't get me started on the nightmare that was Christmas 2003, when I ordered my girlfriend's digicam online then tried to pick it up at a Best Buy outlet. In the time it took three different "sales associates" to locate my Sony DSC-P32, I could've built my own. Out of toothpicks and bubblegum, MacGyver-style.

Best Buy's been suffering the consequences of its skeeviness as of late, however, as it scrambles to keep pace with Target, Wal-Mart, and Costco. Let's face it, America's a pretty lazy nation, and if we can pick up a progressive scan DVD player while simultaneously purchasing a five-pound bag of Doritos, heck, we'll do it. So Best Buy has to compete on price, and that means pushing its low-end, in-house Insignia brand ever harder. Just last week, the chain announced a whole slew of new Insignia dreck that'll be ready for the holidays.

The upshot? If you've got a cheapskate uncle who knows you're into gadgets, expect some of the following goodies come December. Should you curse your fate, or is "Insignia" synonymous with "low-end quality"? An answer (of sorts) after the jump. PLUS: More surplus goodness!

Before I sat down to tap out this column, I did the requisite check of what the Gizmodo-ers have previously written about Insignia. Turns out that it hasn't exactly been a favorite topic of discussion; there was a matter-of-fact news item when the brand debuted last October, then nothing really since (except for a brief shout-out in a previous Low End Theory). Makes sense, as the brand isn't designed to excite us gadget nerds. As Best Buy vice chairman Brad Anderson quipped when introducing the brand, "We're trying to go wherever there is a value proposition." In non-execspeak, that means, "Yeah, it's cheap-ass stuff made by contract factories. You wanna fight about it?"

Some of the most touted Insignia products are flat-panel TVs, which obviously fall beyond Low End Theory's purview. (Note to first-time readers of this space: If it costs more than two bills, it ain't low-end enough for Low End Theory.) But there are also some cheaper units to be peeped, starting with the Sports Armband AM/FM Radio (pictured above). Not a bad looking product, but I don't get the $26.99 price tag. It's a shade too expensive to be an impulse buy, and there's not much of a price difference when compared to last-gen Samsung YEPPs (now Froggleable for around $30). True, the YEPPs don't offer the AM band on their tuners, but I refuse to believe there's that many folks who jog along to bad talk radio.

Slightly more impressive are Insignia's 10-mile, 22-channel radios. True, you'll need an FCC license to operate on GMRS channels, and I sorta doubt the typical Insignia customer possesses that level of radio nerdiness. But at $69.99 for a two-handset pack, this is a much tastier deal than the armband radio. And that stated 10-mile range is a lot better than what a comparable amount of scratch will buy you at Radio Shack.

The latest additions to the Insignia lineup are a range of portable DVD players, including a basic model with an impressively large seven-inch screen. It's currently on sale for just $119.99, which sounds like a nice deal until you check out the specs. Progressive scan? Nope. Playback time? A piddling three hours, if you're lucky. S-Video output? You're kidding me, right?

Okay, granted, cruddy specs are the norm for low-end merchandise. And I'll give Insignia some mild props for their PCs, which at least have the decency to feature Pentium 4 chips instead of eMachines' lousy Celerons. But if Best Buy thinks that Insignia's gonna help it compete with Wal-Mart and Costco, they could have another thing coming. They don't seem to get that the future of bargain hunting isn't in specialty stores; consumers see Cobys and jWins everyday at the local CVS or Rite-Aid, after all, and I'd bet the farm that neither of those budget brands is any worse (or better) than Insignia. Heck, I bet some of their products are even made in the same factories.

I get what Best Buy is doing here: they're trying to snag those customers who walk into the store, realize that they can't afford the name-brand product, and then are relived to discover that, hey, there's an equivalent Insignia product available for 40 percent less. But will that be enough to save Best Buy over the long haul? Already, the company seems to be making some dicey, possibly desperate moves to shake itself out of its funk, like partnering with Geek Squad and AuctionDrop.com. Here's a better idea: how about dealing with your customer-service woes instead? (Even better ideas to fix Best Buy? Lemme know, champ.)

Obviously, I'm all for low-end merchandise. But I'd much rather buy my $15 radios from the Gem Gem Gem Value Store on 125th Street than descend into the chaotic bowels of the nearest Best Buy. Unless, of course, Insignia starts a Willy Wonka-inspired "golden ticket" promotion. I'm sure the factory that makes those cheap-ass portable DVD players is a magic place, indeed.

A SURPLUS OF COMMENTS: Gigantic reaction to last week's column on Army surplus stores. Most folks wrote in to chastise me for not understanding that "Japanese watch movement" simply means "Japanese gears are inside the watch." A few kinder, gentler souls, however, sent along recommendations on other surplus options. The most popular suggestion, by a country mile, was American Science & Surplus—not military stuff, by and large, but how can you not love a site that sels 3,200 RPM motors for $15 each?

Also, one vote was cast for Col. Bubbie's, based in Galveston, Texas. Couldn't locate any good electronics on the site, but "the Colonel" apparently accepts faxed wish lists. Oh, and if you've been looking for a World War One practice sword, he's got you covered.

Brendan I. Koerner is a contributing editor at Wired and a columnist for both The New York Times and Slate. His Low End Theory column appears every Thursday on Gizmodo.