The Best Products of 2006

Each year brings its fair share of bozos and its stars. Those that brought out the bozos (or bought them) know it and we don’t want to rub salt in their wounds during the holiday season (well do that right before CES instead). This week we’ll chat about the products that stood out in our minds as ground breaking and spectacular in a number of categories.

Best Laptop PC: For me this was about balance, you could get very powerful PCs that would break your back, or small PCs that were portable but didn’t have the power to do extensive graphics or games. My favorites for the year are the Voodoo Envy FA:228, a 4.5 pound custom colored product with stunning visuals and very good performance, the Dell XPS M1210, similar with a much more aggressive price-point but lacking the customization (so I had mine painted by Smooth Creations with a Carbon Fiber effect), and the HP dv9000  where I tossed out the whole weight thing and went piano black with a whopping 17” screen and gave up working on airplanes for watching movies in airports and hotel rooms. If I had to pick one, the altered M1210 was my favorite but I find I actually use the dv9000 more often because I’m not flying a lot right now. I just love the fact that PC companies are getting design.

Dell m1210 with custom graphics & skin

Best Desktop PC: I thought about this long and hard, but I generally build my own desktop PCs. What really impressed me this year, however, was the Mac mini. The mini comes the closest to what I think we should actually be using in a desktop PC. It’s easy, it actually does media relatively well (and is often used by a number of folks I know as their Media Center); plus it is a brilliant industrial design. In 2006 I actually think this product set the bar for value and I don’t recall ever saying that about an Apple product before.

Apple Mac mini

Monitor: This was a harder choice than I thought, in terms of lust it was the 30” Dell which was favored in most shows and gaming events but which is really expensive and required the highest level graphics solution. For affordability and range the Gateway 24” FPD2485W monitor stood out, with a massive number of ports and a built in Faroudja upscaler and an aggressive price. I didn’t see anything that could touch it.

Gateway FPD2485W

MP3 Player: While I actually like videos more than music, I generally find I use my laptop for videos and not a portable player; and size, cost, appearance, and customization all matter. In my mind it came down to two and, given the trade offs, I’m calling this a tie. The SanDisk Sansa e200R  has a subscription service, contains a radio and a user changeable battery, and attractive price points (and does video). The Apple iPod Nano now has metal cladding, is more robust, comes in multiple colors and you can get it monogrammed; the best value for both was in the 2GB entry size but both stand out equally in my mind as top products in this class for the year. The SanDisk is more useful for me and is what I carry, but the iPod is flat-out better looking and I know that is more important to many.

SanDisk Sansa e200R

Connected Home Sound: Moving music around the home was big in 2006 and there were a number of really interesting ways to do it including physically moving your iPod to various base stations. But here I’d favor technical excellence in a product that is both easy to use and easy to set up because way too many of these things either never make it out of the box, or aren’t used when they are out. Lead product was the Sonos music system. While expensive, it is incredibly easy to use and set up and it even tied back into the Rhapsody music service for on-line music content. It also works with a Universal Plug and Play server so it really didn’t need a PC to be on.

Sonos Music System

Home Media Storage: This is an area that will get a lot of focus next year as we move into full blown media servers and richer products like Apple’s iTV; Microsoft’s enhanced Xbox, and Cisco’s Cable Bypass Box. Two products stood out, the ReadyNAS NV which is arguably the most technically advanced of the personal network storage products and HP’s reasonably priced Media Vault  which excels at being easy set up and use.

ReadyNAS NV

Video Game Console: There is one measure for a console and that is the number of good games available for it during the review period. While there clearly is some great stuff coming for the Wii which had price and controller advantages, and the PS3 which really had a nasty launch, the Xbox 360’s one year lead and HD-DVD option make it my choice for 2006. The Xbox 360 enters 2007 with three big advantages, installed base of consoles, library of games, and the most robust on-line experience.

Microsoft Xbox 360

Favorite Utility: This was actually rather easy. Window Blinds by Stardock is a little $20 utility that can turn your desktop into something that looks wild. You can have it look like Windows Vista or the MacOS; it changes the fonts, Window, background, animations or something out of Star Trek. This thing is just fun and it’s not particularly expensive.

Favorite Photo Frame: Memories are important but digital picture frames, in decent sizes, have historically been too expensive. Prices dropped like a rock for these things and the best one I found was the Pandigital 8” with LED lighting. It doesn’t use a lot of power and the pictures are sharp, bright and it even does transitions and plays music (speaker could use some work).

PanDigital Picture Frame

Favorite Camera: The HP Photosmart R927 is like a rocket. It takes 15 pounds off you, your spouse, your girlfriend, even your grandmother. Decent camera, not too expensive, but that 15 pounds can make you a hero and it sure is better than the diet or the “do I look fat” question. I’m surprised everyone doesn’t have this feature by now.

HP R927

Home Automation: This year I finally updated my own home’s automation system and moved from the X-10 which I’d used since the early 80’s to something vastly more reliable. The X-10 stuff had started to make my home look hunted as it mysteriously and without prompting turned things on and off. After a lot of research, I came to the conclusion Insteon from Smart Home was best and if you want to move beyond the clapper, it is the best path to travel.  

Favorite Gadget: Adding a tuner to a PC is interesting but adding one to a laptop turns the laptop into a portable TV. It’s kind of handy if you are traveling and don’t want to live with what the hotel has or you are simply sitting in an airport and want to watch your own programming. Pinnacle PCTV HD  plugs into your USB port and gives you both analog and HD TV programming and, as most in their class do, it has DVR capability. It was one of those things that just hit me as cool in 2006.

Pinnacle PCTV

DVD Player: You’ve purchased the HDTV set and now want to watch something on it. You saw earlier that we called HD DVD the winner but what player would you get? Personally I’d get a regular DVD player with an up-converter right now and the best I’ve seen is the Oppo Digital DV-981 it makes your regular DVDs look very close to HD. And if you are like me, you have a lot of regular DVDs.

Oppo Digital DV-981

Best HDTV: If you have the money and can find it, the best visually is the 46” Sony Qualia KDX46Q005 . This TV leads the market into LED backlighting and it is a brilliant TV to watch. Very hard to find though and about twice the price of any similar sized product but it is at least a year ahead in terms of technology and showcases what will likely see a lot of next year. Another was the HP 37” SLC3760N, this is the first wireless flat panel TV and it has a full media extender built in as well. It too is a technology showcase and while not big or as bright as the Sony it is also a lot more affordable.

Sony Qualia KDX46Q005