“What gadget should I get?” is a timeless question. To answer it, here’s our current leaderboard of favourite gadgets, including smartphones, laptops and cameras — updated with the latest and greatest of the whole year, as well as the winners from the 2011 Gizmodo Awards.
UPDATED FEBRUARY 3, 2011
We know you don’t want to blow that pay on merely the shiniest, or the the simply newest. So we’ve considered a balance of price, features, reliability — and above all, quality — to make sure you’re choosing a gadget that isn’t just great, but one that’s sensible. We’ve updated our roster of Giz-approved gadgets, and below, you’ll find these picks.
Best Smartphone
We’re big fans of Samsung’s Galaxy S II and the HTC Sensation. The Motorla Razr has arrived also. On the horizon: the Galaxy Nexus and HTC’s Sensation XL/XE.
Otherwise, the iPhone 4S is hard to go past.
Best Windows Phone
The Nokia Lumia 800 is like a little Scandinavian Cadillac in your pocket. It’s the slickest, smoothest Windows Phone you can get. And with its beautiful matte polycarbonate shell, it’s got the design and build quality to stand toe-to-toe with the iPhone. Alas, it’s not out in Australia just yet, but you can preorder it from MobiCity.
The measure of a computer isn’t just a mess of specs and benchmarks: it’s the confluence of performance, design, usability, and the machine’s fit to its particular task and pricepoint. These are the computers we think bring the total package.
Best Laptop
The new 2011 15-inch Core i7 MacBook Pro is beefier than ever. If you must have a PC, the Toshiba Portégé R700 is a 1.4kg Core i5 monster.
Best Netbook
The 11.6-inch Acer Aspire One 722 swaps out Intel’s weak-sauce Atom processor for a beefier AMD C series APU. This 1.4kg machine is light enough to carry around all day, has HDMI out for watching movies on your TV, and lasts nearly seven hours on a charge.
Best Ultraportable
Apple’s brought both sizes of the MacBook Air line straight up to what you’d expect from a laptop in 2011, adding a Thunderbolt port, but more importantly some sweet Sandy Bridge i5 and i7 chips, and backlit keyboards.
Best Windows Ultraportable
The Samsung Series 9 is our favourite, least MacBook-like ultaportable laptop out right now. More than the MacBook Air or the Zenbook, this is the one that people perk up and ask about when they see it. It’s got a wonderful matte screen, a very usable trackpad and a solid keyboard. Just beware: There’s a new wave of ultraportables coming this year that promises to be really, really good.
Best 3D Laptop
Asus’ G51Jx 3DE beat out the competition. It has a built-in IR emitter, which offers a big improvement in overall experience.
Best Value Laptop
Good design, comfortable typing and a great sound system make the HP Pavilion G6x the best budget laptop out there.
Best Gaming Laptop
Pretty much the diametric opposite of a budget laptop, the Alienware M17x (2011) is a monster. Its massive benchmarks are made more ridiculous by five hours of battery life-an eternity for gaming laptops.
Best Processors
The Core i5-2500K hits the critical bang/buck sweet spot for smooth gaming. Otherwise, pick your budget and check this list.
Best Desktop Graphics Cards
We’ve knocked off the ATI HD 5970 chipset in favour of the Fermi-packing Nvidia GeForce GTX 580. Otherwise, decide your budget, THEN pick the card from this list.
Best Mobile Graphics
Anything with Nvidia’s GeForce 400M series will have serious gaming muscle.
Best Motherboard
The Asus Rampage III Extreme barely edged out the competition in our new motherboard roundup.
Best Router
We’re happy to report that benchmarking Netgear’s new WNDR4500 left us grinning from ear to ear. This is the fastest router we’ve ever tested, and it’s packed with new features.
Best SSD
Kingston’s SNV425-S2 64GB drive stood out by delivering blazing performance on the (relative) cheap.
PC Case
The Silverstone Temjin TJ11 is nine inches wide by 25 inches high and 25 inches deep. It’s massive and expensive and absolutely a preposterous thing to own. But it has amazing build quality, thermal control and moddability.
Some aspects of the TS-459 Pro II hardware are comparable to the competition, and in other respects, it’s just head and shoulders above the rest. A 1.8GHz dual-core Atom powers the TS-459 Pro II, and 1GB of DDR3 RAM comes preinstalled, though you can upgrade to 3GB yourself. QNAP also offers more connectivity options than most mortals will know what to do with, and it’s strong on the software side, too.
It feels like the tablet market has been bursting at the seams, but for now the top choices are still relatively straightforward. Expect this list to get a lot more crowded in the coming months.
Best Tablet
Here’s the simple truth about the Apple iPad 2: there is nothing else like it. Maybe it won’t replace your laptop. Maybe it could be even thinner and lighter and faster. But there is nothing else like it.
Best Ereader
This one’s an about-face. We loved the Nook Simple Touch from the time we laid eyes on it, but the Kindle Touch’s amassment of features swayed us. After extended day-to-day use, though, smaller software features melted away and the superior reading and user experience of the Nook won out.
Best Android Tablet
If you know you want an Android tablet, the Transformer Prime is the one to buy. It’s the best constructed, fastest Android tablet out there. The only people who should hesitate are those who don’t want to be confined to Wi-Fi.
Readers’ Choice: Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
Even if the Galaxy Tab 10.1 is exactly the same as the Xoom and every other Android Honeycomb in terms of power, performance, features — this is the new Android tablet to buy. Because it’s the first one to feel right.
Editor’s Pick: Asus Eee Pad Transformer
The Transformer offered something different and exciting in the tablet space; not only was the keyboard a design idea rather than a bolt on section but it also added battery life as well.
The great megapixel race is over. But now what the hell are you supposed to do? These are the best cameras of the post-megapixel world.
Best Budget DSLR
The Canon EOS 550D (known as the Rebel T2i in the US) is the ideal first DSLR. The simple controls shouldn’t intimidate you for long, plus it can hold your hand a decent bit of the way, thanks to clever innovations like the Creative Auto Mode.
Best Mid-Range DSLR
The Nikon D300s and Canon 7D deliver for the money, but the 7D delivers more, since it’s packed full of newer technology and for the people who want it, the video component is truly killer.
Best ‘Spensive DSLR
The Nikon D3s is a peek at the near future of photography where shooting in any lighting condition is possible. It’s really exciting. (1D Mark IV if you’re shooting more video).
Best Affordable Pro Compact Camera
Simply stated, the NEX-C3 performs much better than the other cameras in its class in nearly every situation. It’s better, and, yup, bigger and heavier. The 18-55mm kit lens isn’t collapsable, so this camera is never going to fit in your pocket, and while taking a quick shot in auto is easy enough, you’re going to want to spend some time learning the menus, and programming the camera’s customisable buttons to get the most out of it. In terms of image quality, the 16.2MP, 23. 4mm x 15.6mm sensor blows the rest of the cameras in its price range away. It’s not even close.
Editor’s Pick: Canon EOS 600D
Canon’s EOS 600D offered an excellent range of modes for those stepping up to a full DSLR model; while it’s nowhere near the best DSLR in Canon’s range it’s a really solid camera option.
Best Micro Four Thirds Camera
Micro Four Thirds cameras have long promised to bridge the quality of DSLRs with the size of point and shoots. The Olympus PEN EP-3 is the fullest realisation of the Micro Four Thirds dream so far.
Canon’s S95 was our favourite pocket camera. Um, it’s probably not anymore. Meet the S100. What’s new? Oh, Canon’s first Digic V processor. A wider 24mm zoom lens. A 12MP CMOS sensor (up from a 10MP CCD). 1080p video. And GPS built-in.
Best Pocket Camcorder
The Kodak Playfull is a very capable shooter with several great features and one major shortcoming-a too-small display-but the fact that we found it selling at multiple online retailers for less than $US100 goes a long way to make up for that deficiency.
Best Waterproof Camera
Panasonic’s 12.1MP Lumix TS3 is thoroughly rugged and does geotagging and 1080p video.
Best Helmet/Sports Camera
The GoPro Hero HD is cheap, impossibly rugged, and mounts on just about anything to take HD video at 60fps, while the ContourHD Surfboard Mount is a surf video assassin.
Best Camera Lenses
We’re adding our roundup of well-priced, excellently performing lenses to the list, for those of you looking for an upgrade.
In the absence of the side-by-side benchmark comparisons when you find when shopping for computers, home theater gear can be particularly hard to get a handle on. Giz has your back.
Best TV
Samsung’s had a good year for TVs, and of the nominated set the UA55D7000 is an excellent proposition; it’s Smart TV capable, Wi-Fi capable and interacts nicely with the Samsung Galaxy S II if you’ve got one; as with the other vendors it’s also available in other sizes to suit budget and space requirements.
The LG 50PZ950′s THX Certified display has amazing picture quality worthy of your Blu-ray collection. 3D performance itself could be better, but the whole package is one of the best TVs out there.
Best Budget TV
The well-loved Vizio’s XVT3SV series is a cheapass’s dream come true. Its matte screen especially drew high praise.
Best Blu-ray Player
The LG BD570‘s key virtue is file compatiblity-you can use this thing pretty much like an HD media player, a full-fledged Apple TV killer. The PS3 still holds its own, though.
Best Receiver
The Pioneer VSX-1020-K is controlled by your iPhone, and anyone who’s slagged through their fair share of shitty AV receiver menus-whether on screen or on the receiver itself-knows what a boon it is to have a nice GUI in the palm of your hand.
Best Game Console
The new Xbox 360 is smaller, has more ports, runs quieter and costs the same: $449 in Australia. It has a 250GB hard drive and built-in 802.11n Wi-Fi.
Best Affordable Amplifier
The Topping TP-30 is the best audiophile-worthy amplifier to be had for under $US500.
Best All-in-One Home Entertainment
The home theatre doesn’t have to be a patchwork affair of gear you put together one layaway at a time. The LG LHB976 all-in-one does a downright enviable job, with solid speakers, a great user interface and an iPod dock.
Best MP3 Player
When Apple reshuffled the iPod lineup, the iPod touch became something else. It’s not the expensive, fancy iPod. Or the cheap, gimped iPhone anymore. It’s the iPod.
Best iPod Dock
The Octiv 650 nails a near perfect harmony between sound quality, easiness and price, with a few unique features to boot. If speaker docks are unremarkable almost by definition, the Octiv 650 is a shooting star.
Best Speakers
High quality sound doesn’t need to cost a fortune — turns out there’s a lot of great audio gear out there for less than $US2000. Audioengine’s A5 speakers are $US350 a pair, but pack serious sonic punch — and they’re self-powered. Check out the rest of the roundup if you’re looking to splurge a little more.
Best Headphones
We’re finally recommending an official pick for cans, Bowers & Wilkins P5s — and they’re a doozy. As our Joe Brown says, they are, in a word, “DOPE”.
Best Budget Headphones
With a closed-back, over-the-ear design and a durable design that has some portability, the Sennheiser HD280 cans are the king of the budget earphone mountain. They’re not the cheapest, or the smallest, or the best-looking, but they strike the best balance between clarity and resolution and the ability to handle multiple genres of music old and new.
Best Home Audio Streaming
We’ve added the dreamy Sonos system to our end of year list — read Brian’s lifechanger-status writeup and you’ll understand why.
Some of the coolest stuff you own doesn’t fit into a broad, big box category. Here are some odds and ends that we love.
Best Solar Charger
Gizmodo Editor Emeritus Brian Lam said the Joos Orange is the “best solar charger [he'd]ever tested”. It’s rugged, works in weak light and can charge an iPhone four times with just one full charge.
Best Bluetooth Headset
The Jawbone Era already has downloadable voices (“You have… two hours… of talk time remaining”) and runs lightweight apps. It doesn’t take a lot of imagination to envision future apps that utilise the motion sensitivity.
Best Cloud Storage Service
It’s SugarSync — with a few caveats. SugarSync was the best confluence of price, ease of use and features, but if you’re looking for pure, sheer simplicity for sharing your sharables with the lovable luddites in your life, Dropbox might still be the better option. And if you’re a total cheapass, maybe take a look at Google, or Microsoft’s SkyDrive.
Best Weatherproof Kindle Case
Case Logic’s Water Resistant Kindle Sleeve is made of thick plastic and has an easy to grip neoprene case, double ziplock-type seal. Perfect, otherwise.
Best Universal iPhone Remote
The Griffin Beacon is an IR blaster that converts actions from your iPhone into signals all media boxes can understand. Sleek. Inoffensively decorative. Imagine a polished stone sitting on top of an Apple TV — that’s pretty much what the Beacon is.
Best Stroller
The B.O.B. Ironman Jogging Stroller rolls like Curtis Mayfield circa 1972. It flies. Its ultralight frame and spin-happy hubs make for a delightfully easy ride.
Best Mobile Bluetooth Keyboard
The Targus Bluetooth Wireless Keyboard for tablets came out on top of our mobile Bluetooth keyboard deathmatch. It doesn’t fold or roll up like some of the other ones, but after using the it for a few minutes you forget it’s undersized. The individual keys have some separation between them, making keyboard errors less frequent, and it’s attractively priced.
Best Bluetooth Keyboard
The Microsoft Bluetooth Mobile Keyboard 6000 hit the sweet spot. First off, it’s compatible with everything you can throw at it: OSX, Windows, Android devices, iOS devices, they all pair easily and you’re good to go. They keys have great click to them. They’re slightly stiffer than the Logitechs’, but they’re not at all hard to press. There’s a very slight curve to the keyboard, making it gently ergonomic without alienating people who are used to a straight tray.
Best Wireless Mouse
The Logitech Performance Mouse MX takes everything that’s great about the Marathon Mouse — the same wonderful scroll wheel, the same smooth glide, similar (but better) thumb buttons — and improves upon it. The laser it uses to track its position will even work on clear glass, which is crazy. It’s also rechargeable.
Best Mobile Broadband
Telstra’s done a lot to shed its appearance as the “high cost” mobile broadband provider; while it’s still charging more for its data than competitors, the difference is lesser while the coverage and speeds have largely remained very solid. Being the first (and to date, only) ISP to offer 4G data services.