1.Siemens Xelibri 8
We were tempted to put this phone in the worst phones category, but after looking at it for twenty minutes and still not being able to work it out, we were forced to shift it sideways into the realms of 'eh'?
What was going on when Siemens decided to make this phone? It's like a little button with limited ability to, well, anything. A d-pad from an original Nintendo controller, bolted on to a plug and dangling off the end of a necklace does not make a tip top phone.
We were tempted to put this phone in the worst phones category, but after looking at it for twenty minutes and still not being able to work it out, we were forced to shift it sideways into the realms of 'eh'?
What was going on when Siemens decided to make this phone? It's like a little button with limited ability to, well, anything. A d-pad from an original Nintendo controller, bolted on to a plug and dangling off the end of a necklace does not make a tip top phone.
Too many companies hide behind the label of 'fashion accessory' when designing batcrap mental phones, and let's be honest it's no excuse.
Yeah, it had a screen, but that was only to add to the mystique – beyond that the most amazing features it possessed were a screensaver and an FM radio.
You try spending 20 minutes to send a text message response with just 15 characters – even Twitter lovers would want to destroy this thing (and they're a pretty tolerant bunch).
2.Nokia 7280
Someone mentioned this phone to us a while ago and before we had time to stop and check our internal cool-o-meter, we leapt in with the factoid: "Oh yeah, that phone. The stick one used by the Pussycat Dolls in the music video for Beep?"
Had we thought that response through a little more we might have realised that a better idea would have been to enter the conversation by mocking the phone too - instead we bore the brunt of clearly having watched a number of girls parading around in underwear a little too much.
In fairness, it was used in the video (check the footage from 0:29 for proof... sorry), and while it looked cool being able to do your make-up in the inbuilt mirror then click it open to take a call (well, we thought so) it was so ridiculous in design we still can't believe it.
Part of Nokia's 'fashion' phase (marked out by phones that had little labels on that got so dirty little colonies of bacteria threatened to take over your pocket) this phone had no keys, just a click-wheel nabbed from the Apple iPod design.
Some people liked it because it fitted in their bags easily for a night out (mostly girls) but we have a better idea – just get a bigger bag and leave the Nokia 7280 at home.
3.LG GD510 Watchphone
The most recent addition to the list, the LG Watchphone is a device that came into being simply because LG could do it.
Samsung has been making watchphones for years, along with other no-mark Asian firms, but there's a reason they failed to make the mainstream – you look ridiculous talking to your wrist.
However, that didn't stop LG pushing the watch onto the British public, and charging £500 a pop for the privilege. The problem is that in the UK you can't have multiple SIM cards, so the GD910 became your actual device all the time.
And after the eighth text message that your fat fingers fudged up and the third hushed conversation you had to have talking to your wrist in a shop because the bundled Bluetooth headset had run out of battery power, you knew you'd made a mistake forgoing a holiday this year so you could live the 'Dick Tracy' dream.
Oh, and we also pulled a muscle trying to use the camera – unless you constantly only want to take pictures of yourself, you needed to be a contortionist to turn the front-facing camera around.
4.Samsung B&O Serene
'This is a piece of art that transcends the boundaries of mobile and phone, creating a fusion that exists outside the realms of audio and creates a vortex of truth at the boundary of what is possible'.
This is how we might have written the PR blurb for the Samsung Bang & Olufsen Serene phone, which was as much made of insanity as it was bits of metal and plastic.
The premise sounded pretty good – a phone that would work equally as well as a stylish desk speaker, finally beating off the spectre of those tinny speakers chavs love to pump at the back of the bus.
But no, in between that great idea and release, there must have been an 'upside down' day at the Samsung factory, as to think that a phone with an ageing interface and the buttons in the wrong place could justify a £900 price tag by having a 'sort of nice opening system' is like taking the air from a scuba diver and replacing it with helium and saying: 'Well, at least you'll die with a funny, squeaky voice'.
We've spoken to people that defend this phone, who gabble on about the sound quality and the premium build and what have you – but most of these people also own sculptures of titanium ants and platinum banana-ripeners too, and laugh artily as they descend down their spiral escalator into a lounge filled with hyper-intelligent octopuses.
5.Toshiba G450
And finally – the Toshiba G450. We nearly didn't include this one, mainly because we get a sense that someone from Toshiba knew this phone was mostly made of crazy juice and yet still thought it would be a laugh to release it.
Let's just go through the specs – it's an MP3 player with only 160MB internal memory. It's a phone that you have to use a headset to talk on and it only has two hours of talktime at most. It has two keyboards in annoying to hit places.
It's designed as a portable modem, but doesn't support Bluetooth. In short, it's a dongle with a near-impossible game on it that you have to win to send a text.
And damn it, we love a challenge, and we love a phone that's at least a little bit different, which is why we can't hate the G450. But we can think it's a jolly odd way to handle a USB dongle, and for that reason alone, we doff our crazy caps on bended knee to one the most random of mobile phones.
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