PC World Top 100

The best products of the year.

PC World staff | Tuesday, January 26 2010

2. Twitter (social media service, free) Twitter made it into the Top 100 last year but since then, it has only grown stronger. Its uncomplicated API has led to an explosion of cool client apps and media sites that continually expand what it can do, including robust photo and music sharing.

4. HIS Radeon HD 5870 1GB (video card, $899) Things were quiet for a time in the world of GPUs but the 5870 heralded the next step up in bleeding edge performance with 2.15 billion transistors. It even supports up to three screens.

5. Yellow iPhone App (address directory, free) After launch, the Yellow app fast became the most popular free app on the local App Store. Look up a business, find its location with Google Maps and get directions to go there. Easy.

6. Microsoft Bing (search engine, free) Whereas Google emphasises a quick-loading design and a list of highly relevant search results, Bing presents its results in Search Categories that it creates dynamically in response to the user’s query.

7. Canon PowerShot SX200 IS (digital camera, $700) It’s pocket-size only if you have really big pockets, but the 12X-optical-zoom SX200 IS justifies its size by delivering astonishing versatility. With full manual controls plus a Smart Auto mode, 720p HD video recording, great image quality, and that powerful lens, the SX200 IS is a budding photographer’s best friend.

10. Microsoft Windows 7 (operating system, prices vary) Windows 7 smoothes out various Vista annoyances and makes the interface cleaner and easier to work with.

11. Intel Core i7 (processor series, prices vary) No wonder these processors rule our power-PC charts: Core i7 chips have a bigger cache and a Turbo Boost mode that automatically overclocks the CPU when your system needs an extra burst of speed.

12. AMD Phenom II (processor series, prices vary) AMD’s latest CPUs can’t outrun Intel’s Core i7 line, but they offer features (like overclocking) that enthusiasts love.

13. Intel X25-M Solid State Drive 160GB (internal storage drive, $1,000) A new manufacturing process combines with great performance in this top-notch SSD. This model’s speedy test results make it a compelling flash upgrade for notebook or desktop users but its price
is still a stumbling block.

14. Dell Latitude Z600 (laptop, prices start at $3,645) This super slim 16-inch laptop combines fashion-forward design and high-tech extras – with no cords. A 14mm-thick metallic/rubbery case, a touch-inductive panel alongside the screen that lets you summon on-screen shortcuts, and an inductive-charging base station highlight this status symbol for business travellers.

15. Facebook (social media service, free) A cross between a personal digital scrapbook and a running discussion forum with friends, Facebook has changed the way human beings interact in the 21st century.

16. Canon EOS 500D (digital camera; $2,199, with 18-55mm kit lens) Boasting a 15-megapixel resolution and high-def video capture, this camera is a joy to handle. It also offers Live View for composing photos and a stabilised kit lens.

17. HP Mini 311 (netbook, prices start at $1,299) The first netbook to sport the nVidia Ion platform, the Mini unites an Intel Atom processor and a discrete GPU, producing a fairly powerful combo that lets you run high-def video and games.

18. Sierra Wireless Compass 885 (3G card, $399) This USB modem for Telecom’s new XT network is a breeze to set up thanks to its self-install and it offers excellent and reliable performance.

19. Sony Vaio Z36GNB (ultraportable notebook, $4,499) The Vaio Z36GNB smoked our World Bench 6 test with a score of 100 and it sports a very cool twin video card set up that offers a choice between Speed and Stamina. It’s got a 13.1-inch screen, a great spec and it weighs just 1.48kg.

21. HTC Magic (smartphone, $1,099, cheaper with a Vodafone contract) HTC’s Android OS-based smartphone has lots of features and a touch interface that almost rivals the iPhone. You get access to the Android Market for downloadable apps, too.

22. TomTom for iPhone (in-car GPS navigation, $120) A game-changer in the in-car GPS market, TomTom for iPhone turns navigation into a software product that you can load on your iPhone. No more standalone GPS device required.

23. Apple iTunes 9 (media jukebox software, free) Home sharing lets you automatically synch music between computers in your home, the iTunes Store gets a makeover, and Genius Mixes creates a radio station for your life.

24. Lenovo ThinkPad T400s (laptop, $3,499) For frequent business flyers, this laptop is a trusty sidekick.

25. Boxee (online video service, free) The internet offers many great sources of video these days, and Boxee’s software for Windows, Mac, and Linux pulls them all together – for free.

26. SanDisk Extreme Pro CompactFlash Card (memory card; $1,450 for 64GB, $820 for 32GB, $460 for 16GB) With read/write speeds of up to 90 megabytes per second, the Extreme Pro card is wicked fast. Though pricey, it’s worth it for photographers who want to take full advantage of their digital SLR’s UDMA (mode 6) interface.

27. Apple iPhone 3GS (smartphone; $1,149 for 16GB, $1,349 for 32GB, cheaper with a Vodafone contract) A faster processor, an improved camera, and software for recording video and uploading it directly to YouTube highlight the iPhone 3GS.

28. HP Envy 13 (laptop, prices start at $4,499) The Envy 13 is a sleek, slim laptop with a neat metallic frame and a raft of high-end hardware.

29. Atebits Tweetie 2 (iPhone app, $4.19) On the iPhone, it’s hard to beat Tweetie 2’s clean interface and simple execution of Twitter’s essential features. This charming mobile app connects replies to the tweets that they’re responding to and lets you manage multiple Twitter accounts easily. Tweetie 2 is a birdie to watch.

31. Xmarks.com (Firefox add-on, free) Xmarks is a must-have for anyone who wants to keep a consistent, automatically updated set of Firefox, IE, or Safari bookmarks on PCs and Macs.

32. HP Pavilion dv7 (laptop, prices start at $2,999) With a 17.3-inch screen and top-end specs, the dv7 is an excellent multimedia machine and awesome for gaming on the go.

33. Flight Control (iPhone/iPod game, $1.29) This hugely addictive game from Aussie developer Firemint has sold millions of copies. Landing planes is simple but it’s far from easy – this is what a touch interface was designed for.

34. Seesmic Desktop (social media software, free) Seesmic Desktop consolidates your Facebook and Twitter accounts into a single interface that transforms all of the tweets and status updates your friends send you into a continuous stream.

35. Avira AntiVir Personal (security software, free) This was the best free antivirus program we tested in 2009 for detection rate (98.9%) and scan speed.

36. iGo Netbook Anywhere (charger, US$70) Though it is smaller and lighter than a standard power brick, the Netbook Anywhere adds a USB port for charging additional devices, as well as airplane and AC adapter connections. And if you have another iGo charger (for your full-size laptop, say), you can share this device’s tips with that charger.

37. 3M MPro120 (digital projector, $550) One of the best mini projectors we’ve ever looked at, the MPro120 delivers superb image quality and such impressive features as 2 lumens of brightness, a 20,000-hour LED light source, VGA resolution, 2- to 4-hour battery life, and stereo speakers. When you attach it to a laptop, a digital camera, or another device equipped with video output, the projector excels in displaying colourful photos, videos, and presentations at small-screen size on any light-coloured surface, in darkened or subdued light.

38. Twitpic.com (photo-sharing software, free) Twitpic allows you to post and share photos to Twitter from your website (using the Twitpic API), from your phone, or from the Twitpic site.

39. Qik.com (online video service, free) This web service allows you to stream live video from your mobile device to your friends via Qik’s website. Afterward, the video remains archived at the site for future viewing.

40. Canon PowerShot G11 (digital camera, $1,000) The PowerShot G11 is a portable powerhouse. It shoots RAW images, comes with 5X optical zoom that can extend from 28mm to 140mm, has a flip-out LCD screen, and offers a full range of manual settings.

41. Canon HF S10 (digital camcorder, $2,800) This camcorder has robust manual controls and captures sharp 1080p video and 8.6-megapixel stills.

42. Mozilla Firefox 3.5 (browser, free) In our 2009 tests of web page loading speed tests, only Google Chrome beat Firefox 3.5. Firefox 3.5’s new features include private browsing, geolocation, and improved session restore.

43. Clickfree Traveller (storage device; US$70 for 16GB, US$130 for 32GB, US$220 for 64GB) A lightweight, credit-card-size device, the Traveller combines a generous amount of storage space with easy-to-use backup software (and a cleverly concealed full USB 2.0 interface), making it perfect for people on the go.

44. HP Officejet 6500 Wireless (inkjet multifunction printer, $379) Compact yet loaded with features, this MFP offers good performance (suitable for a small office with moderate output needs) and ease of use at a tempting price.

45. Nova Development Parallels Desktop 4 (virtualisation software, $145) Run Windows apps on your Linux PC or Linux apps in Windows with Parallels Desktop 4. Unlike other virtualisation apps, this software integrates the guest OS directly into the host, so you can launch a foreign OS seamlessly from within your native desktop, hassle-free.

46. LastPass.com 1.51 (password manager, free) LastPass 1.51 automatically fills in saved log-ins and forms with the click of a button. This handy web freebie and browser plug-in also synchronises your data to any computer that you use regularly. Finally – a more reliable password manager than a workstation littered with yellow Post-its.

47. Panasonic HDC-TM200 (digital camcorder, $2,000) Capture good-quality 1080p video and 10.6-megapixel still images with this versatile camcorder, which provides deep manual controls as well as useful automated settings.

48. Grooveshark (online music service, free) Find a song on this online service, and play it immediately. It’s that simple – and since Grooveshark has plenty of music and can be accessed at no charge, it’s pretty cool, too. Grooveshark offers a premium service in addition to its free option; either way, no audio ads will interrupt your tunes.

50. Western Digital My Passport Essential SE 1TB (portable storage drive, $400) Western Digital’s stylish, compact portable hard drive packs 1 terabyte of storage on a 2.5-inch drive inside its chassis. WD is the first hard-drive maker to migrate to micro-USB for connections, too – making more-streamlined designs possible.

51. Belkin Powerline AV Starter Kit F5D4075au (networking kit, $300) This kit lets you extend your home network over your electrical wiring system. Plug-and-play setup and solid performance put this kit at the head of the powerline networking class.

52. Valve Steam (digital game-distribution service, free) With 20 million user accounts and 837 games from publishers like Activision, EA, and Ubisoft, Steam is the place to buy everything from casual time-killers to enthusiast-calibre thrills.

53. Duracell MyGrid (charger; US$80, some accessories extra) Duracell’s MyGrid is a wired pad that can re-juice up to four mobile devices simultaneously – and wirelessly – via conductive charging. It’s not perfect: you have to slip your BlackBerry or iPod into a supplied PowerSleeve, charging takes just as long as with a wired charger, and the device is incompatible with some phones. But it noticeably reduces recharging clutter.

54. Sonos Controller 200 (remote control, $950) iPhone users would be in texting heaven if the on-screen keyboards on their smartphones worked as well as the one on the Controller 200, the sophisticated remote for Sonos’s high-end digital music system.

55. Seagate Replica (backup hardware, prices start at $149) The Replica backs up your entire computer, including system drives, and protects data in real time for as long as it’s connected.

56. Blip.fm (music service, free) Sort of like Twitter for music, Blip.fm lets you share and discuss tunes. Scroll a list of people’s song choices, plus the short comments (or Blips) posted about the music. Listen to “blipped” songs as they come up, or skip to ones you like.

58. Google Chrome (browser, free) Google’s streamlined web browser is fast and crash resistant: if a web page hangs up, Chrome closes it instead of bringing down the whole browser.

59. Synology DS209+ II (storage device, $1,395) With a stable, reliable OS and more features than you can shake a stick at – RAID striping and mirroring, DLNA media serving, video surveillance, and integrated backup, to name a few – the handsome DS209+ II is network-attached storage in a class by itself.

60. Google Picasa 3.5 (photo software, free) This photo-management program adds impressively accurate face-recognition features and uses Google Maps to add geolocation information to photos. The scanning and tagging provide a quick way to find your snaps.

61. Western Digital TV (HD media player, $299) It’ll play just about any format under the sun, offers a sleek interface and supports full HD including 1080p24 for Blu-ray movies.

62. Google Books (online service, free) This service gathers 10 million scanned, digitised, searchable books from libraries and collections all over the world. Those in the public domain are available to download and read.

63. UStream.com (iPhone app, free) Use UStream if you or your business wants to broadcast an event live to an internet audience. The UStream player is well designed and intuitive for first-time users. And the only other things you’ll need for your live broadcast are a camera and a broadband connection.

64. Sendmehome.com (identification service, free) With Sendmehome, you may get your lost gear back. Print out stickers with unique ID numbers and instructions for returning your gadgets to you. If someone honest finds your smartphone, you could get it back in a day or two.

65. Digsby.com (message service, free) This simple program lets you communicate with people using different IM clients or social networking sites such as Facebook.

66. Jabra SP700 (Bluetooth car speakerphone kit, $149) The SP700 mounts on your sun visor, and delivers above-average call quality for a good price. It also makes voice announcements when it’s turning on, turning off, paired and when FM is enabled so you can keep your eyes on the road.

68. Dropbox (online storage service, getdropbox.com, basic service free) Dropbox makes online storage, including file synching and sharing, as easy as saving to a local drive. Just save or drag files – up to 2GB for free, or up to 100GB for a fee – to a folder on your Windows, Mac, or Linux system, and Dropbox’s software will promptly transfer them to the service’s secure online servers.

69. Evernote.com (online content manager, basic service free) This site gathers email messages, business documents, web clips, memos, and images in a sortable format that lets you find everything fast. It even reads text in your pictures, so you can search a snapshot of a whiteboard by keyword.

70. Adobe Photoshop Elements 8 (photo editing software; $195 separately, $284 bundled with Premiere Elements 8) Elements delivers Photoshop’s imaging power to nonprofessional photographers in an accessible, tabbed interface. Version 8’s Auto Analyser assesses the content of your pictures and applies special keywords to identify images by focus, level of contrast, exposure, number of faces or objects, and so forth. See page 22 for our review of the Photoshop/Premiere Elements 8 bundle.

71. Panasonic PT-AE4000E (LCD projector, $4,499) The fourth generation in Panasonic’s full HD home cinema LCD projector line-up, the AE4000E brings further innovation in the form of a new Red-Rich lamp that is able to deliver 150% brighter images in cinema picture modes.

72. Canon Pixma MX860 (multifunction, $429) Multifunctions have rapidly taken over from single use A4 inkjet printers. The MX860 copies, scans and prints very good photos, too.

73. Netcomm NP802n Power n+ Gigabit Wireless Router (networking hardware, $310) It’s not often we give the Aussies big ups, but this Netcomm router delivers a reliable and fast connection with an excellent range.

74. SlideRocket.com (presentation service, basic service free) This striking, browser-based presentation software works with any OS and is accessible from anywhere at any time.

75. TrafficCamNZ (iPhone app, free) Check out live traffic camera images before you jump in your car. 50 cameras are loaded by default but you can find and add your own. A paid version of the app lets you load more than three camera views at once.

77. PC Tools Threatfire 4.5 (security software, free) This antivirus application is designed to supplement your existing security software. Unlike traditional antivirus programs that primarily use malware-signature files to detect baddies, Threatfire identifies malware by analysing its behaviour. In our tests, Threatfire 4.5 caught all 15 malware samples we threw at it. The software works well alongside most current antivirus programs, but it has shown some conflicts with AVG products.

78. Adobe Premiere Elements 8 (video editing software; $195 separately, $248 bundled with Photoshop Elements 8) The new Organiser lets you view, keyword-tag, and manage videos and photos. You can also drag and drop tags onto a video while previewing it. See page 22 for our review of the Photoshop/Premiere Elements 8 bundle.

79. Marketprice.co.nz (online ticket marketplace, free) Want tickets but can’t get them? Got tickets but can’t use them? Head for Marketprice where you can buy and sell tickets to concerts, sports and other events.

81. Sony PSP Go (handheld gaming device, $500) Ditching the optical disc format of the original PSP, the Go uses 16GB of flash memory instead and is a whole lot more portable as a result. Its got Bluetooth 2.0, too.

82. Asus Eee PC 1101 (netbook, $760) The slim, well-designed Eee PC 1101 has a great keyboard and touchpad and a clear, bright, 11.6-inch screen. Its battery life rocks, too, at over 8 hours.

83. Wolfram Alpha (search engine, free) This unusual search engine returns information – neatly formatted with graphs and images – not web pages. It doesn’t come close to the scope of Google, but for well-presented data on serious topics, Wolfram Alpha is a great resource.

84. Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition (operating system, free) Ubuntu Linux has become the gold standard in free OSs. Version 9.04 has the best hardware support in Linux history, including tools to manage displays and wireless network connections.

85. Western Digital Caviar Green WD20EADS (hard drive, $599) How about 2TB of space on a single drive? The WD20EADS combines vast storage with lower power consumption.

86. Hillcrest Labs Loop Pointer Remote (input device, US$77) This stylish device is an oddly shaped wireless mouse for pointing and clicking your way around the dial. It’s also adept at navigating various set-top media hubs. To input text into your PC without a keyboard, you must use the Loop in conjunction with Windows’ on-screen keyboard feature.

87. Transmedia Glide OS 3.0 (content access service, basic service free) Glide gives you remote access to your data – from photographs and music to word processing and spreadsheet documents – via a web browser over a smartphone, cellphone, PDA, or other device. Glide is OS- and device-neutral, and users don’t have to move between siloed apps to modify and share various file types.

88. Acronis True Image Home 2010 (backup software; free trial, US$50 per licence) This powerhouse backup software has a revamped interface and new features such as one-click backup and continuous data protection.

89. Wordnik (online reference, free) With detailed definitions, synonyms, audio pronunciation guides, and usage data, Wordnik is great for word nerds.

90. Xero (accounting software, from $29 per month) This homegrown online accounting software is growing fast. The handy dashboard gives you a financial snapshot of your business at a glance.

91. LG Flatron W2442PA (monitor, $560) This feature-rich, 24-inch widescreen LCD delivers full HD images, fantastic image quality thanks to LG’s f-ENGINE technology, and comes with a comprehensive set of features.

93. FileHippo.com Update Checker 1.035 (update-managing service, free) PC World’s readers recommended this practical tool, which scans your PC and identifies software updates you need. You can download the updates with FileHippo, but downloading won’t occur automatically.

94. Linksys Dual-Band Wireless-N Gigabit Router WRT320N (networking hardware, $255) The WRT320N did well in our tests, and it can operate at either the 2.4GHz or the 5GHz Wi-Fi band – handy flexibility if neighbouring Wi-Fi networks surround your office.

95. NinjaVideo.net (video-playing service, free) NinjaVideo.net is the place to watch newly released movies and just-aired TV shows. Content ranges from episodes of Lost to documentaries and other long-form news programmes.

96. AV Labs DVD Maker II (video converter, $150) This handy USB dongle will turn all your tired old VHS video tapes into sparkling digital MPEG4 files. You can even add special effects, transitions, titles and picture in picture.

97. GTA IV: The Lost and Damned (game, $70) It’s a sequel to GTA IV, but not a sequel because the story takes place in parallel, and even intersects at times. You get to flesh out the lives of bit players from the original game, while enjoying the same great level of game play.

98. Braid (game, US$15) Simplistic yet complex, Braid is a brilliant homage to games like Donkey Kong and Super Mario Brothers, but with much better graphics and sound.

99. Nintendo DSi (game console, $389) The world’s bestselling games handheld introduces a matte finish, larger TFT-LCD screens, two 0.3-megapixel VGA cameras, Facebook support, and an online game and app store.