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PC World 's Best 100 Products of 2007

Posted by Zonk on Tue May 22, 2007 11:18 AM
from the have-to-love-those-product-lists dept.
Software Hardware Technology
javipas writes "The popular PC World magazine has published its annual list of the 100 best products of the year, with a few surprises on it. Google Apps Premiere Edition ranks first, with 4 other service products on the list. Apple has six products on it, with Tiger — a two-year old OS — on the ninth position. Microsoft and Dell have four each, and Canon and Nikon, three. Ubuntu 7.04 has made it, and has entered on the 16th position. That makes you think about the kind of ranking process, doesn't it?"
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  • Rubbish (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Edie O'Teditor (805662) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:20AM (#19222975) Homepage
    Save it for December already!

    • Re:Rubbish (Score:5, Funny)

      by eln (21727) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:27AM (#19223097) Homepage
      Come on man, we have to get the jump on these things. VH1 is scheduled to show "I Love 2007" on Friday, with "I Love 2008" being shown the following week. There will be a retrospective on the 2000-2010 decade in June, with the extravaganza "I love the 2000s" covering the greatest hits of the entire 21st century to air on July 4th, 2007.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Animaether (411575)
      where's my mod points already? Troll? More like INSIGHTFUL. Even though it shouldn't take any insight to realize that you can't claim "car of the year 2007" in february either - but I guess it's more profitable not to be insightful. Perhaps the Troll mod that parent poster got is evidence thereof.
      • I don't think it's a list of 2007 released stuff.
        I think it's their 2007 list of stuff. If you see what I mean.

        And 2007 cars came out last year, 6 months into 2006.
        As they always have.

    • I'd rather look back on the whole year rather than 11/12ths of it. Or are we just saying that December is totally irrelevant?

      This ridiculous game of one-upmanship that people play with each other to try to get their annual reviews in ahead of others, etc is just ridiculous. Frankly, it just makes them look stupid.

      And while I'm on the subject, why the hell does EA title the annual releases of their sports game for the following years rather than the years that they're published? Are people really stupid enou

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Control Group (105494) *
        I can only speak to two franchises, because they're the ones I've played, but:

        For Madden, the game is numbered according to the year the Superbowl takes place in. For the '07-'08 season, of course, that's '08.

        For the MLB franchise the name of which I can't remember, the game was numbered according to the year the Series took place in, which means that MLB '07 would represent the '07 season.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bkr1_2k (237627)
      Not to mention some of the products aren't even from 2006, much less 2007. OS X Tiger was released in April 2005. How is that relavent to 2007? Or is it preemptively supposed to say Panther and they just screwed up?

      Even as an Apple user, I call bullshit on this "100 best list"
      • That was supposed to be Windows Vista but they got confused about which product they were using.

  • Printer friendly link (Score:5, Informative)

    by dalmiroy2k (768278) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:20AM (#19222977)
    Less ads:

    http://www.pcworld.com/printable/article/id,131935 /printable.html [pcworld.com]

  • Um? Time Warp? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ericdano (113424) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:22AM (#19222997) Homepage
    Is something messed up over there at PC World? Vista clocks set wrong?

    How can you do a Best of 2007 when we aren't even half way through 2007????? Seriously. 2009 cars coming out next week?

    I like compression and all, but moving political primaries up, now this.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by mabu (178417)
      The whole story is basically one long advertisement.

      These days there is no distinction between editorial and advertising, thanks to the Fairness Doctrine [bsalert.com] being eliminated. While the FD never affected specialty print publications like PC World, the fact that for the most part, all mainstream media shamelessly panders to their advertisers has made the notion of objective reviewing almost nonexistent.
      • I had to make sure and reply to this and voice my disagreement with the Fairness Doctrine, and it's insane precepts of controlling free speech in the interests of assuring minority (or even majority) opinions are given a free platform, at the cost of our most precious first amendment rights. I just had to make sure and do that, you see. ...I'd hate the parent to get modded down for violating the Fairness Doctrine.

    • Re:Um? Time Warp? (Score:5, Funny)

      by UbuntuDupe (970646) * on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:36AM (#19223223) Journal
      How can you do a Best of 2007 when we aren't even half way through 2007?????

      It's like how I get my May issue in April, or my May 6 issue on April 29, or do my 45-minute hour with my consultant, or buy my 1.5'' x 3.5'' two-by-four, or buy my 1080p PS3 that downscales to 720p, or have a mortgage rate of 5.9% that really means a 6.1% annual interest rate, or learn about an inflation rate of 2.5% that jumps to 3.5% if I have to do anything crazy like buy food or energy.

      (Btw, anyone know how to get Canon's powershot to upload to YouTube without making the sound out-of-sync?)

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by weg (196564)
      How can you do a Best of 2007 when we aren't even half way through 2007?????

      Well, as a result, Mac OS X Tiger (released April 2005) barely made it in.. ;-)
    • The same way I just bought the August edition of my favourite comic?

  • Top 100 advertisers? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by lintocs (723324) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:24AM (#19223039)
    Reads like a who's-who of PC World Advertisers...

    Did they rate them by number of ads, or total dollars spent?
    • Indeed, they totally ignored the excellent 4/3 "standard" [wikipedia.org] in use by Olympus, Panasonic and Leica, to choose totally proprietary, unexceptional Nikon and Canon cameras. I bet Nikon and Canon have far bigger digicam ad budgets.
      • Eh - 4/3rds just isn't an especially lovable standard. It pushes the sensor size a bit smaller than a lot of DSLR people would really like to see. I'd have to use some pretty ridiculously wide lenses to get a decently wide Field Of View. The 1.5x crop sensors that the rest of the DSLR makers (Nikon / Canon / Pentax) use are already a bit small.

        I could almost forgive the small sensors if the manufacturers were really doing nice, innovative things with them, but the 4/3rds cameras are (unless I've missed s

      • Re:Top 100 advertisers? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by thetable123 (936470) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @12:39PM (#19224171)
        Both you and Nikon are missing the point of the Nikon lens mount. The beauty of it is (or at least should be that you can take any lens of any Nikon and put it on any other Nikon. I have a 40 year old lens I can still shoot with it on my brand new Nikon. When you buy into a camera, you are buying into a lens system too. (That is unless the lenses are nothing to write home about.) The lens puts the picture on the film (or sensor), the body just holds everything else in place. Nikon lately has started missing the boat on the low to mid level cameras with compatibility. If I can't use my old Nikon lenses with a new Nikon camera, then I have no real reason to stick with Nikon.

        As to TFA, I can't be the only one is is sick of "Top XX" articles from an (at best) mediocre advertising supplement.

  • Nikon D40X in 23rd (Score:5, Interesting)

    by denisbergeron (197036) <DenisBergeron.yahoo@com> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:26AM (#19223071)
    Wow ! I realy don't know why this on was there, but, every photographer out there think that a bad camera because the lack of AF-motor and the impossibility to use half the lenses of Nikon !
    • The list is chock-full of piles of shit that have superior competition. It's paid advertising. Nothing to see here, move along.

            • Considering the whole list is one giant opinion, and your only real argument in favor of your position is that you personally disagree, I'd say troll is appropriate.

              So a whole article of opinion is worthy of the front page, but expressing an opinion on those opinions is troll?

      • How can two Nikons rank higher than the one Canon they put on the list? They obviously forgot about the 1D MkIII. Seriously, a camera that shoots 10 10-megapixel pictures in one second deserves to be on the list.

        I don't think the 1D MkIII (a pro-level camera) is the market that PC World is interested in. I am surprised to see that the Canon 30D made the list but the 5D did not. (Since the 5D has brought a full-frame sensor to the "consumer" market.) They also put the Nikon D40x above the Nikon D80. This i

  • ...annnnd coming around the halfway mark it's McAfee SiteAdvisor edging out Canonical Ubuntu 7.04 by a length with Microsoft Xbox 360 Elite hot on their tail. Pioneer Elite 1080p PRO-FHD1 is neck-and-neck with RIM Blackberry 8800 but wait ... Apple Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" is coming up strong on the outside turn passing Adobe Premiere Elements 3.
    • This would be better done as a Murray Walker impression, complete with totally inaccurate predictions and a pants-on-fire delivery. Or, at least, it would reflect rankings and prognostications in IT better than the athletic commentators who are generally more sober.
  • How about the Samsung u740 cellphone? It's the size of the Motorola razor, but isn't held together by hopes and dreams, and has a handy-dandy keyboard for texting (and of course it flips both up and to the side for calling and texting, respectively). Probably the best mobile phone I've owned, as it's compact but very functional and well-built.

    Yes there was totally an ad for it on this particular Slashdot page just now :-P which is why I thought of it, but I do think it deserves a spot if something like the

    • How about the Samsung u740 cellphone? It's the size of the Motorola razor, but isn't held together by hopes and dreams

      I've dropped my V3i from waist height onto concrete (result: battery compartment flew off, not a scratch on the unit) and onto carpet (sometimes no result, sometimes battery compartment flies off) also without damaging it.

      In addition, the thing rattles around in my pocket, an environment that has seen the demise of no less than two palmpilots and two handspring visor deluxes.

      People who cl

      • It's been improved recently, I admit. 3 of my friends have one; though the UI is rubbish and the reception for a couple of them isn't killer. I think that both may be due to the service provider and not the phone.

        The battery compartment does fly off a lot when it's dropped, I know from experience myself :-) can't really say that's a good thing since the more crap flies off the more crap can be stepped on by accident or find its way under a couch or go down an elevator shaft, heh :-P

        Motorola still has no exc

        • It's been improved recently, I admit. 3 of my friends have one; though the UI is rubbish and the reception for a couple of them isn't killer. I think that both may be due to the service provider and not the phone.

          No RAZR has good reception, although the V3i and later have acceptable service. The UI is indeed Motorola's fault and it does suck, but the next generation of RAZR is stronger yet slimmer (they used more metal in the phone) and runs Linux, with a brand-new interface.

          The battery compartment does fly off a lot when it's dropped, I know from experience myself :-) can't really say that's a good thing since the more crap flies off the more crap can be stepped on by accident or find its way under a couch or go down an elevator shaft, heh :-P

          While you have a point, the door is cheap and having it fly off is preferable to having something crack. Seems sort of like a French car, which has a tendency to explode in an accident instead of crumple, as an alternative means of dispelling energy.

          Motorola still has no excuse for the HELLOMOTO song, though. Whenever I hear that thing, I just wish I had a real Hammer of Dawn so I could annihilate the offender ^^

          Now you have reached a subject upon which you and I cannot agree more strongly.

  • so the #1 product (Score:5, Insightful)

    by asv108 (141455) <alex&phataudio,org> on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:30AM (#19223141) Homepage Journal
    Is essentially a web e-mail service for businesses with extra applications, but there is no protection against data loss or leaks. [pcworld.com]

    Google's terms of service for Google Apps has some alarming boilerplate about the company not being responsible for lost data.

    I think a lot of organizations will have qualms about sensitive files living on some Google server somewhere.

    • And the moment they add any sort of data loss guarantee, they'll start getting support calls from Sally in Accounting because she "accidentally" clicked the delete button, then confirmed twice that she really wanted to do it...

  • how many people... (Score:5, Funny)

    by brunascle (994197) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:40AM (#19223271)
    ...just scrolled through the list to make sure vista wasnt there?

  • OS X Tiger (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sootman (158191) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:40AM (#19223289) Journal
    If you want to be generous in your interpretation, maybe you could say they included it to make the point that, even at two years old, it's still better than most of what's out there. (Reference: see almost every Vista review out there. Their quip: "Name a good Vista feature that goes beyond what's in Tiger. Yeah, we can't either.") Speaking of Vista, it didn't make the list at all. Not 1st, not 99th, nowhere.

    Craigslist also made the list, and that's what, 10 years old now? I guess the list means "100 best tech products that you can still get this year"--in which case OS X and CL definitely belong. It's "The 100 Best Products of 2007," not "The 100 Best NEW Products of 2007." (CL just gets better and better, though I wish they'd make the jump from plain text to a database so I could RELIABLY find Macintoshes without having to look for Apple and Mac and Macintosh and IMAC (OMG CAPS!!!!!11) They don't have to go all the way and make people specify VRAM and 10/100 vs. gigabit, but mfg-make-model-speed would be nice. It could all be optional, so retards who don't want to mess with dropdowns can just accept that they'll get fewer views.)

    More than anything, any "best of" list that includes Adobe Premier is immediately suspect. :-)

    If you want to get really picky, you could point out that 2007 is not over yet. You know what it is? I think it's "We Felt Like Making a List of a Bunch of Things We Like." Thank you, Slashdot, for slavishly supplying them with pageviews.

    Suggested tag: slownewsday

    • Re:OS X Tiger (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Glove d'OJ (227281) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @03:35PM (#19227069) Homepage

      "The 100 Best Products of 2007," not "The 100 Best NEW Products of 2007."


      If this is the case, then where are:

      • Airplane
      • Automobile
      • Penicillin
      • Democracy / Democratic Republic
      • Electric Lightbulb
      • Radio
      • Personal Computer
      • TCP/IP
      • CAT-5 cable
      • Space Shuttle
      • Ballpont Pen
      • Cat's Eye Road Reflector
      • Phonograph


      Each of these is available (potnetially under a branded name, i.e., Ford Mustang vs. generic "automobile") as a product in 2007.


      Or is this just a huge slashvertisement for the PC World advertisers?

  • PS3? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pionzypher (886253) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:44AM (#19223341)
    Absent from the lineup is Sonys wonderchild.

  • And again ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PPH (736903) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:45AM (#19223347)
    ...online porn tops the list.

  • Not too bad, but... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Aphrika (756248) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:47AM (#19223377)
    I would've stuck the Core 2 architecture at #1 as it's made such a huge impact this year across all platforms; desktop, laptop and servers.. There are some notable omissions; the MacBook for one. Why is the overpriced MacBook Pro on there when the oh-so-cheap MacBook isn't? OneNote 2007 deserves a mention. I'd also like to think the Momento 70 digital picture frame should be on there - it's wireless and actually works properly with a PC.

    Stuff that shouldn't be on there? iTunes (yawn) - yes, it's iTunes and in 2007 it's done nothing different from what it did in 2006. As I'm in the UK I'd also wager Apple TV too. The concept's nice, but until Apple start selling video over here, it's not particularly inspiring sat under my TV. Ditto for Adobe CS3 - until they start selling it an a realistic price in the UK, it's not getting my vote at all. We're paying something like $700 for a Photoshop CS2 > CS3 upgrade for Pete's sake!!

    Oh yeah, and why are we doing top 100s in May again?
    • Well the MacBook Pro is actually a more powerful laptop then the MacBook is. ATI 256 Meg Video is a big thing, that makes it perform better then the MacBook. The Lumanating Keyboard, Light Sensor... The extras is what makes it better. Sure for most people the MacBook is a better value because it offers what most people need at a better price but if you need more the MacBook Pro is a better fit.

  • Reminds of something (Score:5, Insightful)

    by HangingChad (677530) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:48AM (#19223393) Homepage

    The awards list reminds of a manure spreader: Not much accuracy but lots of coverage.

  • Ok this is neither a consumer product (in the sense that it is sold for money) nor is it new for 2007! I suspect many other entries also fail one or both of these tests. So where is the top 100 list of things to smoke when writing for PC World to provide the most outrageous articles possible? Because THATS news I can use...

  • Hmm (Score:5, Informative)

    by satellite17 (816105) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @11:58AM (#19223531) Homepage
    Well I'm not sure about the integrity of the article but there are a couple of things that stand out

    Games:
    Wii at no 3
    XBox 360 elite at 18
    PS3 nowhere to be seen.

    The 360 has been out for over a year and I'm not sure how much 1080p and a bigger HDD make now, I guess in a couple of years when HD downloads become the norm this will make a difference. 1080p TVs have been quite rare in the UK until recently but I saw a very nice looking 40" Samsung the other day for about £1000 so I might treat myself at the end of the year.

    (for the record I've got a 360 premium and a wii, I'll probably end up with a PS3 if FFXIII is exclusive but not before, too expensive at the moment!)

    OSX Tiger at 9
    Apple TV at 11
    80GB iPod at 26
    Macbook Pro at 82

    No Zune
    No Vista
    I'm assuming that the HP DV900t 17" laptop runs Windows Media Center

    iTunes at 61
    WMP 11 at 91

    So it looks like Apple "wins" over MS in the home media dept

    Strangely on my XP box I use iTunes for music and WMP / VLC for Video. I just don't like Quicktime. No rational reason (now it plays video at full screen) but I just can't get on with it. It seems slow and unresponsive.

    Still it looks like Apple were right to drop the computer from their name and go for the media market. I get the impression that they've always had the Pro market and so the move to consumer seems to be quite easy for them. (now if they'd just drop the phone bit from the iPhone and sell me a widescreen touch sensitive iPod I'd be a happy man)

  • The what, now? (Score:3, Funny)

    by LMacG (118321) on Tuesday May 22 2007, @01:21PM (#19224853) Journal
    "The popular PC World magazine "

    As opposed to the tired old rag that I see on the newstand occasionally?

  • Thanks! (Score:4, Insightful)

    by RocketScientist (15198) * on Tuesday May 22 2007, @01:31PM (#19224973)
    Thanks to PC World for not making this a 10-page article with 10 items on each page, with gloriously large ads for each of the 10 products.

    While we can argue on the merits of individual items on the list (which, arguably, is part of the reason to post such a list) the presentation format is top notch.
      • I used XP since it came out, and got both Vista for my desktop and a Macbook Pro as a new Laptop at about the same time. Vista, to me, seems to be more.. idiot proof? You can't easily get to the network connections screen anymore, you have to open 2 other screens and find the small text only link to actually view your network connections. With my Mac, I don't know, the UI is beautiful, the apps run nicely, and it does everything I want. I've only got one complaint, and that's not Apple's fault, but the

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