Planet Gadget has spent the last 12 months going innovation-crazy, and we’ve loved every minute of it. But which were the best gadgets of 2009? Pass the gong…
- Phone of the Year: iPhone 3GS
- TV/AV Product of the Year: Samsung UA46B6000
- Innovation of the Year: Fujifilm Finepix Real 3D W1
- Cool Toy of the Year: Nintento Wii Motion Plus & Wii Sports Resort
- Computer of the Year: Asus EEE PC 1005 HA Seashell
- Portable Media of the Year: Apple iPod Touch
- Camera of the Year: Fujifilm F200EXR
- Sat-Nav of the Year: Garmin Forerunner 310 XT
- Audio Gadget of the Year: Spotify
- Eco Gadget of the Year: Toyota Prius
- Gadget of the Year: HTC Hero
Phone of the Year: iPhone 3GS
from R6 400 www.apple.co.za | www.vodacom.co.za
Not just the must-have cellphone of the year, it’s the must-have fashion accessory – as much of a status symbol as quality shoes, a fast car or a shiny watch. The effect the iPhone has had on the mobile industry is even more profound than the changes the iPod hoisted upon the world of music. It embarrasses alternatives with their relative lack of ingenious, beautiful apps, impossibly slick interfaces and effortless multimedia capabilities. Haters deride the 3MP camera, but do you know why they’re haters? Because they don’t own one. Believe the hype: two years in, the iPhone still rules.
Highly Commended
- HTC Hero
- Nokia 6700 CLassic
- Nokia N97
- Samsung Omnia HD
- Sony Ericsson W995
TV/AV Product of the Year: Samsung UA46B6000
R29 000 | www.samsung.co.za
Gadgets often skirt frustratingly close to perfection. They either have the looks, functionality and most of the quality; the functionality and quality and most of the looks; the quality… you get the idea. The UA46B6000 bucks the trend. Just 29mm thick, this LED-backlit TV provides a vast gamut of rich colours and abyssal blacks, while 200Hz processing makes it ideal for watching the footy. Through its Ethernet port you can stream news, YouTube videos and Flickr photos, and it’ll hook up to your computer to borrow media. Bells, whistles, looks and performance: this one’s got the lot.
Highly Commended:
- LG 42LH5000
- Panasonic DMR-BS850
- Sony KDL-40WE5
- Western Digital HDTV
Innovation of the Year: Fujifilm Finepix Real 3D W1
R12 000 | www.fujifilm.co.za
In a year of unfettered gadget creativity, this has to be our favourite, most mind-fiddlingly brilliant piece of next-tech. The 3D W1 ticks all the “proper gadget” boxes, capturing photos and videos in stereoscopic 3D by combining images from two separate lenses and 10MP image sensors. You can then view them without glasses on its built-in lenticular screen, transfer them to Fujifilm’s own Real 3D W1 photo frame or print them out on lenticulars. It’s also compatible with the 3D TV screens we expect to emerge next year (see p60). Truly breathtaking.
Highly Commended:
- Google Street View
- LG GD910 watchphone
- Philips Cinema 21:9
- Spotify
Cool Toy of the Year: Nintento Wii Motion Plus & Wii Sports Resort
R700 | www.nintendo.co.za
They say the original is best, and whoever they are, they’re often right. Try as Nintendo might, it simply cannot trump Wii Sports (the freebie bundled with every Wii console, making it the best-selling game ever). Until this year, that is. Thanks to the added accessory, Sports Resort takes the fun of Wii Sports and ramps it up several notches. You owe it to yourself to play Frisbee on the beach, beat your foes with a padded stick, and wakeboard around the island. For once, it’s the original but better.
Highly Commended:
- Blaze Sega Mega Drive
- Logitech Guitar Hero controller
- Nerf Havok Fire
- Polaroid 2
Computer of the Year: Asus EEE PC 1005Ha Seashell
R3500 | za.asus.com
If there’s anything netbooks are not, it’s sexy. Useful, portable and affordable, but not sexy. Or so we thought. Asus, the pioneers of the tiny web-connected, Cloud-augmented laptop form, proved that beautiful design and blissful ergonomics could come cheap with its 10in (25cm)-screened, Intel Atom-powered Seashell series Then it quelled doubts about performance by endowing this model with a 160GB hard disk and unrivalled 10-hour battery life. This would have been unthinkable for any laptop three years ago, let alone one that costs R3 500.
Highly Commended:
- Apple Macbook Pro 13in(33 cm)
- Dell Studio
- Samsung N110
- Samsung x360
- Sony Z-series
Portable Media Player of the Year: Apple iPod Touch
R3300 | www.zastore.co.za
There’s a reason that iPods are still the default choice when it comes to portable entertainers. Quite simply, they are the best – and the Touch is the best of the best. On its own, it’s an excellent movie player, a great-sounding and intuitive music device and a formidable Wi-Fi internet portal. With iTunes, it’s infinitely more. The App Store empowers the Touch to become a preposterously good portable gamer and productivity tool, and iTunes movie downloads mean that you can connect to a hotspot at the airport and download a film for the flight. Alternatives can only look and and gape.
Highly Commended:
- Apple iPod Nano
- Cowon iAudio S9
- Sony Walkman X-series
Camera of the Year: Fujifilm F200EXR
R4 000 | www.fujifilm.co.za
While bigger, smaller and more unusual cameras grabbed the headlines, the F200EXR got on with the job of taking excellent photos without fuss. This unassuming compact proves there’s life in pocketable cameras yet, sporting the revolutionary 12MP EXR image sensor, which allows it to shoot low-light photos better than any other small camera we’ve seen. Real-world, superior photography is what the F200EXR is all about. Its 28mm wide-angle lens makes it as good for embarrassing drunken group shots as its 5x optical zoom does for travel and portraits. Quietly masterful.
Highly Commended:
- Canon Powershot G10
- Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W1
- Kodak 7X1
- Nikon D5000
- Olympus PEN E-P1
- Sony TG7
Sat-Nav of the Year: Garmin Forerunner 310 XT
R4 900 | www.garmin.co.za
The Garmin Forerunner 310XT is the ultimate watch/GPS for the sports addict. Its high-sensitivity GPS gives you accurate data and the 20 hour battery life is enough for all your training needs. You can use it in the pool, on the bike, and during your run and log each activity separately. It may not be for everyone but for its market it makes logging every element of training and racing a cinch. This makes it stand out from the crowd in a market where GPSs are a dime a dozen.
Highly Commended:
- CoPilot Live 8 for iPhone
- Navigon 7310
- TomTom Go 7
Audio Gadget of the Year: Spotify
Price: Free / R12 a day / R121 a month | www.spotify.com
We once dreamt of an endless CD library stretching off into the distance, from which we could pluck any album of our choosing, whenever we liked, for free. That was the ’90s. This year it was created and named Spotify. CDs have been outmoded by digital streaming, and computers are our hi-fi systems, but the concept remains: all the music you could possibly want, whenever you want, for free. Or, if you like, you can get ad-free access (when they let us SAffers sign up) on your Android mobile or iPhone. If anything proves we’re turning a corner into a braver digital world, Spotify does.
Highly Commended:
- Klipsch Image X10
- Naim Uniti
- Pure Sensia
- Logitech Squeezebox Boom
- Tonium Pacemaker 60GB
Eco Gadget of the Year: Toyota Prius
R326 000 | www.toyota.co.za
With the Prius, Toyota showed the world that there were enough people out there that wanted to be seen t be taking the environment seriously, and would back it up with cold hard cash, that they could build a car just for them. It turns out that it wasn’t just the greenie beanies that wanted a car that could get around town without killing the planet. The new Prius is a step up on its own predecessor, with a better battery system, more powerful petrol engine and a tweaked exterior that makes it one of the greenest ways on four wheels to get around. A deserved winner of the greenest gadget award.
Highly Commended:
- Gocycle
- Powertraveller Minigorilla+
- Solargorilla
- Sony KDL-40WE5
Gadget of the Year: HTC Hero
R6 800 | www.leaf.co.za
No smartphone floored us in the way the Hero did this year. It transformed Google’s Android OS from also-ran into genuine contender, and proved its mettle by squaring up to the iPhone 3GS without the slightest whimper. Sure, the iPhone may have sold by the tankerload and wowed us with its apps, but it was an evolution of an already excellent gadget.
Conversely, our Hero came from nowhere with its social networking integration, its multi-touch interface ad superior multimedia skills. It’s the only mobile we’d consider getting over an iPhone – and that’s really saying something.
Highly Commended:
- Apple iPhone 3GS
- Fujifilm FinePix Real 3D W1
- Olympus PEN E-P1
- Sony KDL-40WE5
This article was taken from the November-December 2009 edition of Stuff magazine
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