Worst Techy Valentine’S Day Gifts

Worst Valentine’s Day gifts 2016

14 February is Valentine’s Day, and with it comes an influx of gift suggestions from companies trying to take advantage of the occasion. According to eHarmony research, Brits spent £1.9bn on Valentine’s Day gifts in 2015, and this year’s figure is expected to rise even further. But there are some items that we just don’t think cut it as a Valentine’s Day gift, so here we’re sharing some of the worst around.

Worst Valentine’s Day Gifts: Power bank

The inspiration for this article came from an email sent by a maker of power banks . We can’t think of many things that are less romantic than a gadget that can add battery life to your phone, but at least it’s practical. Still, if you want to buy one, check out our round-up of the best power banks available .

Read on for more unromantic Valentine’s Day gifts.

Worst Valentine’s Day gifts: A fitness tracker

Unless they’ve specifically asked for one or might want one to track their steps when they run the London Marathon this year, giving your partner a fitness tracker for Valentine’s Day is a no-no. No matter how innocent your intentions were, even if you’ve gone for the number one in our fitness tracker chart , your partner is bound to assume you’re suggesting they need to work out more.

If you’ve been considering a fitness tracker, why not opt for a smartwatch instead? Find out which are worth buying in our best smartwatch chart .

Worst Valentine’s Day gifts: A vacuum cleaner

Similarly, a vacuum cleaner for Valentine’s Day isn’t going to send a good message. It’s essentially saying: “Honey, the house is a mess so I’ve got you something to help you clean it.” The same goes for irons, DIY manuals and toolkits.

Worst Valentine’s Day gifts: Location trackers

Even worse than a vacuum cleaner or fitness tracker is a location tracking device. We’re talking about the kind of tracker you can attach to your keys or vehicle or even a fully-fledged GPS tracker, particularly if you offer to set it up for them. No one wants to feel like they’re being spied on or followed!

That said, if your other half is prone to losing things and you promise to stay well away from the setup process, the Tile tracker is a good little gift, but maybe save it for a birthday or Christmas…

Worst Valentine’s Day gifts: 3D printed chocolate face

No matter how gorgeous you are, getting your face 3D printed in chocolate and giving it to your partner for Valentine’s Day is creepy. We think these 3D printed chocolate pops (or Heads on Sticks as Candy Mechanics calls them) are actually pretty awesome, but as a declaration of your love? Not so much.

Expert’s Rating

Our Verdict

If you’re after a quirky camera that’ll let you take snaps and print them out for your friends or family, but aren’t worried about the quality, the Kodak Smile Instant Print Digital Camera might be a good option for you. But some of the nostalgia of the instant camera is taken away by the design, the ability to choose not to print bad photos and the lack of the traditional developing film.

Best Prices Today: Kodak Smile Instant Print Digital Camera

Kodak’s Smile Instant Print Digital Camera is half instant printer , half instant camera . It can (in theory) print photos you’ve already taken using a different camera and then transferred onto a MicroSD card, but it also has a built-in camera that means you can use it to capture photos on the device itself and print those too.

This may sound great, but the downside is that we found it does neither thing particularly well. Its camera isn’t fantastic, and it’s very slow so taking photos of kids or animals is almost impossible. You are able to choose not to print bad photos, which can’t be said for all instant cameras, but those you do print are likely to suffer with strange exposure and less than great quality.

We’ve always found Zink printers like this one to be less than satisfactory when it comes to their quality. They tend to lose warmth, clarity and contrast, so you might not love the photos it produces.

The benefit of this kind of printer is that you don’t have to wait for photos to develop, but that’s also part of the appeal of your more traditional instant camera that uses film. As mentioned, you can also choose not to print bad photographs and you can edit them as we explain more about below, as well as exporting them to other devices should you wish to.

When taking photos with the Smile Instant Print Digital Camera, or after you’ve captured one, you can add a border to make the print look more like a traditional instant camera photo, or add monochrome, vintage or aqua filters. These can create some nice effects and we often preferred these edited results to a straightforward print.

There’s also a photobooth option that lets you take two photos to print side by side on one sheet, a timer, and a surprisingly effective flash should you need one.

You can store three photos within the internal memory of the device, but it’s recommended that you add a MicroSD card into the dedicated slot for more storage (up to 256GB). You should also be able to print any photos on the MicroSD card that come from other devices, but during our testing we could not get this to work. All of the photos we added to the MicroSD card, whether in a folder or not, were not recognised as data by the printer and therefore unable to print.

When it comes to the design and build of the Kodak Smile, we found it to be sturdy and compact, which is handy for popping into a bag to take out and about. It has a lanyard attachment available too. The shutter button is easily accessible and the viewing screen isn’t amazing, but does the job and is more than you’ll get from some similarly priced rivals. We found that the battery life was good, with a handy indicator at the bottom of the screen to help you avoid it running out mid print.

It’s a shame the design is more printer-like than camera-like. Some of the charm of an instant camera is taken away by the slightly clunky, boxy design. There are several fun colour options available, though, including black, pink, blue, green and yellow.

If you’re unsure about whether the Kodak Smile is right for you, you might like to check out our round-ups of the best portable printers and the best instant cameras.

Verdict

It’s really tricky to rate the Kodak Smile Instant Print Digital Camera. On the one hand, it’s a compact device that has almost every feature we could ask for in an instant camera/printer hybrid. A decent screen, a microSD card slot, a flash, good battery life, speedy printing, editing capabilities and an affordable price tag. On the other hand, the editing capabilities are limited, the microSD card slot seems to have trouble finding images not taken on the Smile itself, and the prints are low quality when they arrive.