The Best Products: Most Anticipated Products

Many people in the Mac community are putting off buying MacBooks because of speculation that the popular line will undergo an aesthetic and internal overhaul. Apple is likely to apply some of the design themes used on the MacBook Air to the impending MacBook and MacBook Pro revisions. These laptops have long been housed in plastic, but the new ones will likely be covered in environmentally friendlier aluminum, and the older keyboards may give way to the Air's backlit keyboard. The redesigned MacBooks may also carry new, second-generation Intel Penryn chips inside.

We'll soon see a new class of mobile phones developed on Google's Android, an open-source software platform that includes an operating system. Designed to help mobile devices take full advantage of Net services, Android may seriously challenge Microsoft's Windows Mobile OS. More than 30 companies, including Motorola and Samsung, have joined Google's Open Handset Alliance to develop mobile apps on the platform, and HTC reportedly is already developing an Android phone. Other handset manufacturers are sure to follow.

The gaming crowd anxiously awaits the September release of a new Electronic Arts game called Spore, the latest creation of Sim City and The Sims designer Will Wright. In the new game, you control a life form that evolves from a microscopic organism in a tide pool to higher stages of life and eventually embarks into space.

Don't miss our annual roundup of the top products of the year, "The 100 Best Products of 2008," and our companion slide show, "In Pictures--The Best Products: Readers' Favorites."