Think Android KitKat's bad? 10 worst tech tie-ins revealed

6 LG Prada

LG Prada

If you've ever suspected that many designers will sign off any old toss, the LG Prada may well confirm those suspicions: three generations of the smartphone appear to have prized form over function, with fiddly, mysterious buttons and a spec that feels a little behind the times.

Never mind that, though: there's a great big Prada logo on it, and for some that's the most important spec of all.

7 Canon EOS 550D Jackie Chan Edition

jackie chan canon

We like digital SLRs. We like Jackie Chan. But do we want the two together? The question's actually academic, because the limited edition EOS 500D was a China-only product. It differed from the stock 550D in several key areas: it had a different neck strap, a better lens, a leather case and the ability to kill a man with a single punch.

Okay, maybe not that last one. We wonder - who would win in a fight between the EOS 550D Jackie Chan Edition and the Nokia N96 Bruce Lee Edition?

8 Jerry Seinfeld and Windows Vista

In 2008, Microsoft's marketers had a genius idea: they would hire someone whose TV show ended a decade previously to make weird adverts featuring BIll Gates.

This, somehow, would make everybody want to buy Windows Vista. Amazingly, the plan didn't work: the three adverts featuring Gates and Jerry Seinfeld were described as among the very worst adverts ever screened.

9 Will.I.Am and Intel

Will.i.am

We have a soft spot for anybody who thinks the internet is a trumpet, but what exactly is it that Will.I.Am does in his Intel job? You'd think the director of creative innovation might have some products to show by now, given that he took on the role back in 2011.

As far as we can tell, all he's doing is lugging an ultrabook around and recording music. It's as if the whole appointment was just marketing bol.l.ocks.

10 David Beckham's Motorola Aura

In 2009 Motorola spent a fortune on turning David Beckham into a terminator to promote its £1,400 Aura luxury smartphone - so it was probably rather miffed when just weeks later he was snapped in a Milan cafe talking on his mobile, which was quite obviously an iPhone 3G rather than a Moto Aura.

But Beckham isn't alone: tennis pro David Ferrer sent his sponsor-pleasing Samsung-promoting tweets from his iPhone, BlackBerry brand ambassador Alicia Keys was busted using her iPhone instead of her BlackBerry, and late last year Oprah Winfrey's Surface-plugging tweet was sent from her iPad.

Carrie Marshall
Contributor

Writer, broadcaster, musician and kitchen gadget obsessive Carrie Marshall (Twitter) has been writing about tech since 1998, contributing sage advice and odd opinions to all kinds of magazines and websites as well as writing more than a dozen books. Her memoir, Carrie Kills A Man, is on sale now. She is the singer in Glaswegian rock band HAVR.