During my time editing T3 I put together quite a few of these Hot 100 lists, so I know that you can never placate everybody. But I still found some of the choices odd enough to comment.

For example, number 10 is the Sony Vaio P-series. Don’t get me wrong – it’s a nice looking piece of kit. But since it launched earlier this year, we’ve seen some stunning netbook designs, like the Seashell from Asus. Or there’s the new trend of ultrathin laptops. Whichever way you look, there are better computers on the market than the Vaio P.

Then there’s number 9 – the Canon IXUS 980 IS. Don’t get me wrong, I love Canon’s IXUS range. But in terms of cameras, surely a video-recording DSLR is where the money’s at right now? Canon’s 5D MkII would be my choice, but Nikon’s offering is just as good. Or even the Olympus E-P1 Pen would be super retro cool enough to crack my top 10. But not just another upgrade to the IXUS lineup…

Number 8 – the Toshiba TG01 Winmo smartphone is pretty hot based on the snapdragon processor, but give me some Android love over Winmo any day – The HTC Hero outranks this handset by a mile in my books.

At number 3 is the N97 from Nokia, which seems to be universally underwhelming reviewers around the world.

Of course, it’s not all bad – I do like the fact that Samsung’s Series 8 LED TV made the top 10, as did the Sony X Series Walkman. In fact, that there isn’t a single Apple product in the top 10 is – frankly – a huge shock. But I do agree with their choice at number one: Even though the Palm Pre hasn’t been getting the best reviews, it has been such a strong comeback for Palm that they deserve top spot. If only they’d release it in Australia.

If you happen to be flicking through the top 10, you’ll see that local editor Nic Healey did actually ask me to offer up my top 5 gadgets for the issue. But what I want to know is what your hottest gadgets of the year are. What gadgets set your pulse racing when you think about moment the sales clerk swipes your credit card and you take the thing home?

I’m tired of this. This sense of permanent discomfort with the technology around me. The bugs. The compromises. The firmware upgrades. The “This will work in the next version.” The “It’s in our roadmap.” The “Buy now and upgrade later.” The patches. The new low development standards that make technology fail because it wasn’t tested enough before reaching our hands. The feeling now extends to hardware: Everything is built to end up in the trash a year later, still half-baked, to make room for the next hardware revision. I’m tired of this beta culture that has spread like metastatic cancer in the last few years, starting with software from Google and others and ending up in almost every gadget and computer system around. We need a change.