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Infomercial Gadgets on Tom's Guide

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Are "As Seen On TV" infomercial gadgets for real? Find out in Tom's Guide's roundup for gear sold to late-night TV-watchers.

Most of us don’t watch infomercials as much as we used to. With DVRs, and YouTube or Hulu (not to mention other, illicit ways of getting video), we simply don’t channel surf like we did back in the good old days before technology changed our TV-viewing habits.

But the infomercials are still there, making promises to nobody in the wee hours of the morning. We guess somebody must still be watching them.

We’ve always been curious about the products touted on these marathon infomercial-sessions. Listen to them long enough, and you almost start to believe the claims. So, we put four of these As Seen On TV gadgets to the test. Do they do the job?  Check out the article on Tom’s Guide.

Magic Bullet: A kitchen device that’s supposed to make the preparation of healthy meals quick and clean. Find out if it works magic in the kitchen, or makes a horrible mess.

SlendertoneFlex Go! Abdominal Toning System Belt: Can strapping on an electric belt really make your muscles move so much that you shed pounds?

Jupiter Jack: Does this hands-free device actually work better than Bluetooth by putting your voice calls over your car speaker system?

Stealth S.S.A.: Positioned as an alternative to a hearing aid, the infomercial makes you think this gadget will deliver super-human hearing abilities.

Chances are that your favorite (or most irritating) infomercial gadget isn’t found in this article. That’s okay. Tell us what we missed, and we’ll track it down. Which “as seen on TV” tech toys boast the most outrageous claims? We want to put them to the test.

8 Comments Comment from the forums
  • 03 September 2009 08:40
    I thought the Magic Bullet was a vibrator?

    You should review the Slap Chop. Then somebody should review the hooker that bit off Vince's tongue, I'm sure someone at Tom's would love to take her for a test-drive on the company's dime.
    Reply
  • 03 September 2009 12:34
    Thank god Billy Mays shit the bucket. His "Mighty Putty" product didn't for for crap. His so called "green to white technology" is bull. I literally mighty puttied a soda bottle to a CD jewel case over night and it still didn't hold together. How the hell did he not spill coffee on his lap or better yet, how did he pull a 18 wheeler. He should of invented a compact defibrillator, so maybe he could of saved his own ass.
    Reply
  • ravenware 03 September 2009 15:28
    I thought this was a computing technologies website. (at least it was in '03 when I started visiting)
    But apparently it has turned into Toms Cell Phone or Toms Random Consumer Crap. It is a good thing that toms dropped the gaming portion of their site; because whether a small blender works or not is far more interesting.

    .|..
    Reply
  • cancer2 03 September 2009 15:57
    Same as ravenware. Well said.
    Reply
  • randomizer 03 September 2009 16:16
    ravenwareI thought this was a computing technologies website.This site is. Tom's Guide is not. If you've been here since '03 you should know that by now. This page is only drawing attention to an article on TG, which gets a mere fraction of the visits that TH gets.
    Reply
  • zak_mckraken 03 September 2009 20:43
    It's sad to see that most infomercials are so deceptive. I know that their only purpose is to convince you to buy a piece of crap, but what if instead they tried to sell you a product that actually works? Have they thought of that? Shamwow looks awesome in the commercial. Hell, it got my excited about a towel for Pete's sake! Vince (the charming prostitute beater) actually manages to get more soda off the rug that he spilled on it at first. A little search for a "real-life Shamwow usage" on Youtube brings your feet back to the ground though.

    It's one thing to tell you a product is awesome, fantastic, life-changing when it's not. It's another to visually show things that will NEVER happen in a real-life scenario! Aren't there laws against that?
    Reply
  • tomsguiderachel1 04 September 2009 02:17
    randomizerThis site is. Tom's Guide is not. If you've been here since '03 you should know that by now. This page is only drawing attention to an article on TG, which gets a mere fraction of the visits that TH gets.Hey Randomizer. Thanks for saying what I would've said. I appreciate it. The truth is that I thought some of you Tom's Hardware guys would find this interesting, that's why we put up the notice about it in Tom's Hardware News. But hey, if you don't like it, you don't have to read it. I just wanted to give you the option.

    Thanks,
    Rachel Rosmarin
    Editor, Tom's Guide
    Reply
  • hawkwindeb 06 September 2009 03:38
    What ever happened to the Flow-Be or name close to that. It was a yellow hair-cutting device that attached to a vac (powerful floor canister type) cleaner. (vac not included) It had different guides that would cut hair at different lengths, etc. Did it work well? How long did one last (blade as well as overall) before you had to buy another or were out of luck if no longer selling....
    Reply