PC World's 100 Best Products of 2005 [Archive]

Kelegacy

11-25-2005, 12:10 PM

PC World (www.pcworld.com) has posted their 100 Best Products of 2005 (http://www.pcworld.com/reviews/article/0,aid,120763,00.asp). Do you own any of the gadgets, gizmos, or software that made 2005 a stellar technological year?

What makes a product great? For 22 years, we've answered that question in the form of our World Class Awards. The products, technologies, and categories keep changing. But in 2005, as in 1983, great products meld practical features with innovation. They help you rather than annoy you. And they do it at a fair price. This year we chose 100 tools--the most in years--for work, home, and everywhere in between. Then we ranked them from 1 to 100, scrutinizing each product's design, features, performance, innovation, and price. The resulting honor roll is as wide-ranging as today's world of personal technology. (And 23 of our 100 winners have the best price of all: They're free.)
The list includes such pretties as the PSP, the Rio Carbon, iTunes, Half Life 2, and much more. Mozilla Firefox web browser took home the top honors, with Gmail pulling up a close second.

Draft

11-25-2005, 01:48 PM

How the f does gmail make that list, let alone the top 10.

Kelegacy

11-25-2005, 01:52 PM

How the f does gmail make that list, let alone the top 10.

I believe it's the unprecedented storage space, which keeps getting bigger and bigger all the time. Granted, I never use all that space, but it's nice and free. What I want to know is why the hell is it still in "Beta"? Besides not being able to create my own folders, the thing is a dream.

All they need now is a full blown OS, and Google could be perched to take over the world.

Captain Awesome

11-25-2005, 01:53 PM

HL2 for the win!

Xaerin

11-25-2005, 01:56 PM

not being able to create my own folders, the thing is a dream.

What do you need folders for when you have labels?

ezzkmo

11-25-2005, 01:57 PM

The PSP is #19 but not one of Nintendo's products made the top 100. I dunno whether to laugh or cry. Or just realize I don't give a shit honestly, heh.

But that's a pretty sweet list. Makes me wish I was rich to get some of that cool stuff.

Draft

11-25-2005, 01:58 PM

Ah yes, the oft mentioned GoogleOS, built on the Linux kernel of course, and don't forget GoogleOffice, combining the opensource goodness of OpenOffice with Google's UI development sense. And what Google discussion would be complete without mentioning GoogleISP? After all, their buying "dark fibre" (and isn't that a mysterious phrase!) at an alarming rate.

Bleh, so sick of Google. Spending too much time on /. :P

Kelegacy

11-25-2005, 02:01 PM

What do you need folders for when you have labels?

So, what do labels do? You can save me the trouble of experimenting. I've never used that option before.

danhoo

11-25-2005, 02:06 PM

Taco

11-25-2005, 02:16 PM

More or less, labels are folders, and you can have one email in several "folders".

Danhoo, I just archive everything that I don't want to see in my inbox. Archiving is mutually exclusive from labeling. I find them again between labels and searching.

I also set up a lot of filters, including basic ones that apply labels depending on the sender.

omnithrope

11-25-2005, 02:19 PM

How the f does gmail make that list, let alone the top 10.

Because it works flawlessly, it's free, and there's a ton of space.

Duh.

ezzkmo

11-25-2005, 02:20 PM

Taco

11-25-2005, 02:21 PM

And just as importantly, it drove yahoo and hotmail to make a lot of changes for the better(most notably storage space) to keep up. Releasing a product that forces the industry to improve their product immediately is a pretty major and good thing, in my opinion.

Taco

11-25-2005, 02:23 PM

It's this complexity that makes me want regular folders as well. I'm still not a fan of labels after a year.

It's not complexity, it's just something different. Substitute "folder" with "label" and "move to folder" with "apply label" and it's the same thing. I don't blame people who were happy with what they have and don't feel like doing something different. But complex it is not.

Filters, by the way, are just Outlook rules.

Kelegacy

11-25-2005, 02:26 PM

I'm thinking of getting a Rio Carbon over an iPod. Sleek little bastard, and apparently worth the cash. (as far as overpriced MP3 players go)

Serapth

11-25-2005, 02:27 PM

Thats one of the biggest downsides to trying to pioneer a user interface. We have been trained on the concept of folders, to the point that even if something better comes along, we want our folders damnit!

Almost every OS under the sun, well, ok MacOS and Windows Vista... and every document management system, is trying to move to a database type system, where information is indexed by metadata. In the long run, this is the future, the folder concept is actually pretty clunky, and requires new users to inheirtly know something about the heirarchy. That said, we are soo friggin used to folders, that atleast for a generation or two, new storage systems are going to have to "fake" folders, to get use attuned to a new idea.

It funny, that people want revolutionary changes in the way things are done, but dont want to adapt at the same time. :)

Note: Im not attacking the guy that wants his folders, im the same way, just pointing this out as a problem with developing new UIs.

ezzkmo

11-25-2005, 02:27 PM

It's not complexity, it's just something different. Substitute "folder" with "label" and "move to folder" with "apply label" and it's the same thing. I don't blame people who were happy with what they have and don't feel like doing something different. But complex it is not.

Filters, by the way, are just Outlook rules.
Yeah I see your point. It's just different and it has more freedom in the long run. Your big words in your explanation just must have made it sound complex and threw me off. ;)

Serapth

11-25-2005, 02:30 PM

I'm thinking of getting a Rio Carbon over an iPod. Sleek little bastard, and apparently worth the cash. (as far as overpriced MP3 players go)

I hate my iPod personally. Most overhyped tech ever. Dial wheel is great, until you have too much stuff, then its just friggen irritating.

What am I saying, I found the dial wheel irritating from the first 5 minutes of using the thing. Atleast it was free. I dont really understand why people drop the cash they do on iPods, when other options exist that are cheaper and IMHO superior. Well, other then fashion. Score one to Apples marketing department.

Neosho

11-25-2005, 02:56 PM

I hate my iPod personally. Most overhyped tech ever. Dial wheel is great, until you have too much stuff, then its just friggen irritating.

What am I saying, I found the dial wheel irritating from the first 5 minutes of using the thing. Atleast it was free. I dont really understand why people drop the cash they do on iPods, when other options exist that are cheaper and IMHO superior. Well, other then fashion. Score one to Apples marketing department.

Mainly because i do have 30 gigs of music, and i want to be able to get to any point in that collection whenever i want. Also, i have yet to see any player that can do all of these things without an irritating menu setup. With the ipod it's touch to play, hold to add to on the go playlist. That's about everything i want out of an MP3 player. Also, the screen is one of the best i've seen so far on the new video ipods.

Edit: Also, please tell me about any alternatives. The zen series is crap, huge and bulky and their interface is one of the biggest pieces of crap to ever grace a hand held music player. My iPod goes in the jacket pocket of my motorcycle jacket, and plays while i'm riding. (Incidentally, it also survived a 30 mile an hour highside, so i'm fairly impressed with the product)

Serapth

11-25-2005, 03:00 PM

Mainly because i do have 30 gigs of music, and i want to be able to get to any point in that collection whenever i want. Also, i have yet to see any player that can do all of these things without an irritating menu setup. With the ipod it's touch to play, hold to add to on the go playlist. That's about everything i want out of an MP3 player. Also, the screen is one of the best i've seen so far on the new video ipods.

Maybe the newer iPods are better ( mine I believe is third gen, it still has the buttons ). I found the screen was pretty lousy ( very washed out ), and scratched to hell just from being in my pocket, within the first week. As to the control wheel, navagating songs wasnt too terrible, but trying to adjust the volume or fast forward a track was an exercise in masacism.

Taco

11-25-2005, 03:09 PM

iPod's the best mp3 player I've used and the Nano screen is great, I had never used one prior to the Nano. I could see some things that could be approved upon, but like Neosho alluded to, there aren't any better alternatives. However, even if Creative's were better, I am not giving them a cent.

As far as scratching, seems like that may be a problem still. I bought an Agent 18 case for mine.

danhoo

11-25-2005, 05:26 PM

Taco -- thanks for the tip about archiving in gmail. That does help a bit -- dunno how I missed that (duh...).

Opty

11-25-2005, 05:29 PM

On Gmail labels: You can make things being sent to a label skip the inbox by checking the "Skip the Inbox (Archive it)" checkbox in your filter, the very first checkbox. Personally, labels are better than folders because things can be labeled with more than one label, but things can only be put into one folder. Also, I like the inbox being the place where all my mail ends up because then I can just read through it all, and if I'm looking for a specific email later I reference the label it's in or star it if it's that important.

commodus

11-25-2005, 07:31 PM

So, what do labels do? You can save me the trouble of experimenting. I've never used that option before.Uhh...think of labels as "multiple inheritance folders." A shame you've never experienced their brilliance, as it is nearly blinding. ;)

BTW, Gmail and Firefox definitely deserve top spots IMHO.

Nameback

11-25-2005, 07:39 PM

Yeah I do agree with Firefox and Gmail deserving the top slots, a good list overall, and a very enjoyable read. Also, I havent tried the labels really either, but thats because I havent really had much use for them.

Taco

11-25-2005, 07:41 PM

The real question is....Alienware??

/not an Alienware fan

Furious Wang

11-25-2005, 09:13 PM

Fuck iTunes. What an incredibly horrid jukebox program.

Dabombpizza

11-25-2005, 10:45 PM

Fuck iTunes. What an incredibly horrid jukebox program.
iTunes really isn't that bad. Playlists are easy enough for the non-computer literate person. And it really ushered the legal mp3 market into the average household. I don't use any other mp3 market. I don't like napster, I'm not touch anything that invloves RealOne or MusicMatch (if you think iTunes is bad you must really hate those).

However, I don't like iTunes as my audio player, only my store. It's a memor hog! 30mb compared to Winamps 8mb.

Oh, and thanks for all the tips on gmail, I really was approaching it like a folder system. Filters make a heck of a lot of sense now. And that send to archive option is awesome.

Neosho

11-26-2005, 01:42 AM

Maybe the newer iPods are better ( mine I believe is third gen, it still has the buttons ). I found the screen was pretty lousy ( very washed out ), and scratched to hell just from being in my pocket, within the first week. As to the control wheel, navagating songs wasnt too terrible, but trying to adjust the volume or fast forward a track was an exercise in masacism.

I found that holding the buttons back or forward to skip through a song was fine, same with volume adjustments. When it comes to brightness, yeah, i didn't like the way mine was when i got it, but a little work with the contrast slider in settings and now i'm fine.

I'm really missing as to why adjusting the volume is so hard...I've got exactly the same iPod that you do, with the 4 buttons across the top.

TKO

11-26-2005, 02:16 AM

Fuck iTunes. What an incredibly horrid jukebox program.
Hehe. The trolls are out early today it would seem. :) ..Nice mediaplayer IMHO. Like WinAmp with the complexity and trippy visualizations removed. I only miss the psychodelic visualizations really, and at times like that I just run WinAmp.

It also works darned nicely under MacOS, where most of the database functions are just leveraged from the filesystem (speeds up track-adding operations a lot.) ..Combine it with Firefox running FoxyTunes and I don't even miss the multimedia keyboard. :p

*Legion*

11-26-2005, 02:31 AM

I still can't get used to using gmail labels instead of folders. For example, I get a lot of email I'd like to archive into a folder for future reference, so I use a label (say, "Amazon"). That's great, so now I can see only those emails if I wanted to. However, every time I log in, I still by default see everything in my inbox, including the "Amazon" labeled emails. Is there any way to set up gmail's inbox to default to just show unlabeled stuff?

Your choice of words is ironic - "archive".

Because the answer to your question is the exact same word: "archive".

As in the big button labeled "Archive". When you archive an email, you make it no longer show up in the inbox. It then becomes accessible only through labels (or through "All Mail").

To achieve the effect you want, label AND archive email.

Me, I have filters that automatically do it for certain emails (like, anything from Amazon.com might get labeled "Shopping" and archived, and having unread mails with a certain label would cause that label to be bolded and followed by a number - JUST LIKE a folder in other email applications)

stomper1080

11-26-2005, 03:46 AM

Its strange that they put google search 16th! I would rather have google than any of the things mentioned above it.

Taco

11-26-2005, 06:36 AM

iTunes deserves to be where it is for what it's done for legalized music downloads alone. The software is not bad either, not great, but good. But what it's done for online purchasing can not be overstated.

Serapth

11-26-2005, 07:59 AM

I found that holding the buttons back or forward to skip through a song was fine, same with volume adjustments. When it comes to brightness, yeah, i didn't like the way mine was when i got it, but a little work with the contrast slider in settings and now i'm fine.

I'm really missing as to why adjusting the volume is so hard...I've got exactly the same iPod that you do, with the 4 buttons across the top.

Because fast forward and volume up are the same action. I used mine all the time in the car at first and couldnt exactly spend alot of time looking down at the screen. Thing is with mp3's, the volume is "baked in", so often I would have to adjust volume between tunes. Half the time, it would fast forward, the other half it would do what I wanted. A volume up / down on the side would half made me 100% happier.

As to the brightness, no matter what I do with the sliders, its still hard to see.

Dabombpizza

11-26-2005, 08:32 AM

Thing is with mp3's, the volume is "baked in", so often I would have to adjust volume between tunes.
There should be an option in iTunes to normalize audio. It doesn't work perfectly, but it does get your audio closer to the same sound level.

Royal Fool

11-26-2005, 01:59 PM

Its strange that they put google search 16th! I would rather have google than any of the things mentioned above it.

I agree, Google Search is the most widely used and popular product on that list, by a huuuuge margin. It's silly they would rather pick Firefox...

Oh, and of course Opera 8 went to 88... haha. Humorous and dumb at the same time.

*Legion*

11-26-2005, 03:33 PM

Its strange that they put google search 16th! I would rather have google than any of the things mentioned above it.

Remember that this isn't an all-time list. It's a 2005 list and it probably places most of its emphasis on changes and improvements that happened in 2005.

Google Search in 2005 is improved but not exactly a complete change from Google Search in 2004.

Neosho

11-26-2005, 04:25 PM

Because fast forward and volume up are the same action. I used mine all the time in the car at first and couldnt exactly spend alot of time looking down at the screen. Thing is with mp3's, the volume is "baked in", so often I would have to adjust volume between tunes. Half the time, it would fast forward, the other half it would do what I wanted. A volume up / down on the side would half made me 100% happier.

As to the brightness, no matter what I do with the sliders, its still hard to see.

Hmm, that's odd about the brightness...but pizza is right, there's the sound check option that should take care of that little problem for you. Also, you track forward by hitting the center button and then scrolling, and you adjust volume by just scrolling. The trick is to make sure that your hand doesn't bump the center button. I've never had a problem with it, but now i can understand why people didn't like it.