2020 has been an unusual year with most people having to adapt to new technologies to get through the year. Let’s take a look at what we consider to be the biggest tech disappointments of 2020.
With the year drawing to a close, it’s a good time to view the year in tech in retrospective. While we had some truly amazing technology grace our lives this year — and you can have a look at some of it here -,2020 also had its fair share of disappointing tech products, services, and happenings in general. In this piece, we’ll look at five of the biggest tech disappointments of 2020. Note that this is very much dependent upon personal preferences so you obviously may not feel as strongly about a product as we do, and vice versa. Furthermore, the failures that we highlight may not necessarily be commercial flops, and may have their ardent customers and fans for various reasons. With that out of the way, let’s begin! Following much fanfare, Microsoft finally took the wraps off its highly anticipated «Surface Phone» last year, under the «Surface Duo» moniker. The dual-screen hinge design as well as Microsoft’s penchant for building premium Surface devices had many hopeful that this would be the time the company finally nails the mobile category with a truly revolutionary device that amplifies productivity. Coupled with the fact that it would run Android rather than some new Microsoft OS meant that it would enjoy a huge library of apps too — unlike Windows Phone, where the «app gap» became the bane of its existence. Well, the Surface Duo finally landed in August this year, housing a Snapdragon 855 processor,6GB of RAM,128/256GB storage, a 3,577 mAh battery, a very mediocre camera, and two 5.6″ displays held together by a hinge. Apart from the specs being nothing to write home about with an outdated processor and a very mediocre camera, the things that really disappointed about the Surface Duo on paper were its price tag of $1,399 and its U.S.-only availability. As our Senior Editor Rich Woods wrote back then as well, the Surface Duo was tragically overpriced. With foldable phones priced around $1,500 and above, you would think that Microsoft’s offering fits in neatly in this niche, but an important distinction is that other devices in this price bracket offer a foldable display, rather than two displays held together by a hinge. In fact, the LG V60 variant which comes with a dual-screen accessory, Snapdragon 865,8GB of RAM,128GB of storage, and a 5,000 mAh battery is priced at $899, which is considerably cheaper than the Surface Duo. On paper, the V60 is a much better value offering than the Duo. Of course, the next argument from ardent supporters was that the Duo offers premium build quality and an Android OS that is customized by Microsoft for this device. While the first argument definitely holds weight, the second fell extremely short when reviews of the Duo started pouring in, with the most scathing ones pointing out the numerous software bugs and glitches present in the device that actually result in decreased productivity in day to day tasks, rather than the opposite. Although all of this is expected from a first-generation device that largely appears to be experimental — and we’ve seen Microsoft turn things around with the Surface before as well -, it was still disappointing to see the Duo fail to live up to the hype that it had built over the past couple of years. This is one device that many believed would allow Microsoft to establish a foothold in the saturated mobile market, but clearly, this is not the case. With the company offering three years of feature updates for the Duo as well as finally expanding availability to more markets, one would hope that the company has learned its lessons from this release and things will improve both for this device and other potential successors. This particular device category certainly has promise, but can’t live up to it right now, and definitely not at this price. Yet another heavily hyped product that failed to live up to expectations this year, to some extent. While development on Cyberpunk 2077 started back in 2012, it was not until the completion of The Witcher 3’s DLCs in 2016 that CD Projekt Red (CDPR) went all-in on its upcoming AAA title. The title was marketed as a truly groundbreaking gaming experience, the likes of which players had never seen before. The game was delayed multiple times, but was finally released on December 10,2020. Let’s be clear here from the get-go: Cyberpunk 2077 is not a bad game by any means. According to most reviews and feedback from players around the world, it delivers a gripping narrative, decent gameplay, and a beautifully designed vertical open world.
