The 100 Best Products of 2006

By Alan Stafford

PCWorld |

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At a Glance

Generic Company Place Holder Canon EOS 30D Digital SLR Camera
Citrix GoToMyPC 5
Nuance Dragon NaturallySpeaking 8.0 Preferred
Best Software Simply Accounting 2005
Corel Painter IX
Vonage VoIP
Adobe Photoshop CS2 (Full Product, PC)
Intuit Quicken Premier 2006
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro
Adobe Photoshop Elements 4
Alienware Aurora 7500

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Nero 7 Ultra Edition
Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000 Win32 USB Port English NA Hardware CD
LaCie d2 External 400GB SATA Hard Drive (Serial ATA, 7200 RPM, 8MB)
Adobe Premiere Elements 2.0 (PC)
Palm GPS Navigator (3207NA)
Qnext

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Canon Pixma iP6600D

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Serious Magic Ovation
Generic Company Place Holder Sony Cyber-shot DSC-R1 Bridge Camera
Apple iPod nano 4GB MP3 Player - Black
Canon PIXMA MP950 All-In-One Photo Inkjet Printer (29 PPm, 9600x2400 DPI, Color, PC/Mac)

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Microsoft Xbox 360 System
NEC 21.3" MultiSync LCD2180WG-LED-BK-SV Black LCD Monitor (21.3", 1600x1200, 25ms, DVI, PC/Mac)
Yamaha RX-V4600 Receiver (7.1 Channels, 130 W/Channel, 0.04% THD, Supports 10 Devices)
Apple IPod Video 5th Generation 60GB MP3 Player - Black (60GB Internal Hard Drive)
BitDefender Standard 9

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HP MD5880n 58" DLP Projection TV (16:9, HDTV)
Mitsubishi XD460U DLP Projector
ATI Radeon X1900 XTX Video Card (512MB, PCI Express x16, Dual DVI)
Webroot Spy Sweeper 4.5
Generic Company Place Holder Fujifilm FinePix E900 Compact Camera
Asus A8N32-SLI Deluxe Motherboard (Athlon X2/ Athlon FX/ Athlon 64/ Sempron, nForce4 SLI X16, Socket 939, ATX, 4GB DDR, 1000MHz Bus)
Generic Company Place Holder UltraSharp 3007WFP Black 30-HC

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Creative ZEN Vision:M 30GB Media Player - Black (2.5
In2M Mvelopes Personal
T-Mobile SDA

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Generic Company Place Holder LN-S3251D 32" LCD TV (16:9, 1366x768, 4000:1, HDTV)
Generic Company Place Holder Lenovo ThinkPad X60s Notebook

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Generic Company Place Holder Toshiba Qosmio G35-AV600 Notebook

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Generic Company Place Holder Olympus EVOLT E-330 Digital SLR Camera
Epson Perfection V700 Photo
Ultimate Ears super.fi 5 Pro
Dantz EMC Retrospect for Windows Professional Edition (Full Product)

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Intel Core Duo Processor (2.16GHz, 2MB, 667GHz FSB, Socket 478)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Dual-Core Processor (2.4GHz, 2MB, 2GHz Bus, Socket 939)
Seagate Portable ST9160821U2-RK External 160GB Hard Drive
Toshiba HDA1 HD-DVD Player
eVGA GeForce 7600 GT Video Card (256MB, PCI Express x16, Dual DVI)
Sonos ZonePlayer 80
RedOctane Guitar Hero Bundle (PS2)
Pioneer Blu-Ray Disc Writer (2x/2x/2x BD, 8x/4x/8x DVD+RW, 8x/4x/8x DVD-RW, 2.4x DVD+R DL, 2x DVD-R DL)
Mionet
TiVo ? Series2? 80-Hour Digital Video Recorder (80 GB)
Apple Mac mini/1.66GHz
Western Digital Raptor X 150GB Hard Drive (Serial ATA-150, 10,000 RPM, 16MB)
EIZO Nanao FlexScan S2410W 24.1" LCD Monitor (24.1" 1920x1200, 16ms, DVI, PC/Mac)
SmartHome SYLVANIA Z-WAVE DELUXE STARTER KIT BY UNICAL ENTERPRISES
Salling Software Salling Clicker 3
Mindjet MindManager Pro 6 with Media - 1-User License
iRiver Clix
BFG Technologies GeForce 7900 GTX OC Video Card (512MB, PCI Express x16, Dual DVI)
Channel Sources Dist. ThinkFree Office (Full Product)
NewsGator FeedDemon 2

You know how many new-product pitches we get every year? Thousands, each declaring that the item is the best in its category. Though many of the companies making these claims are clearly delusional, some creations do stand as superbly designed top performers in their field--and you'll find all of them right here in our roster of the 100 best products of the year.

We rated each candidate on its design, performance, and specifications. We generally did not consider price in our evaluations; instead, we looked for products that represent the cream of the crop. But in compiling our list, some products were such great bargains that we couldn't ignore them. Of course, ranking laptops and Linux distributions in one place is tricky, but we used the same scoring system for each candidate and assessed them as consistently as we could. This year we have also assigned each candidate an "impact" score, to recognize significant products that changed the technology landscape. And last, we ranked every World Class award winner by its final score, creating our list of the year's top 100 products.

We've also identified a few of the year's most noteworthy companies, including our pick for the loser of the year. And we've named the 25 worst tech products of all time. For more information see our list of World Class products.