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PC World's 100 Best Products of 2005 286

Posted by CmdrTaco from the i'll-take-three-of-each dept.
insensitive clod writes "PC World published its top 100 best products of 2005. These include Firefox(1), GMail(2), OSX 10.4(3), Alienware Aurora 5500(6), Seagate USB 2.0 Pocket Drive(7), Skype(8), PalmOne Treo 650(10), Google(16), PSP(19), GeForce6600GT(20), Ubuntu(26), iTunes(34), Half-Life 2(38), Wikipedia(60), ThinkPad X41(67), Mac Mini(75), Acronis True Image(83), Opera(88). Surprisingly, iPod only has IPod Photo at 78."
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PC World's 100 Best Products of 2005 More

PC World's 100 Best Products of 2005

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  • They published that list in JUNE (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02, 2005 @10:35AM (#13698250)
    It's OCTOBER. It's not news anymore. There was a big hubbub about Opera claiming the best browser award [mozillazine.org] despite coming in at #88 compared to Firefox at #1.
    • Whether or not it has manufacturing problems, the Nano is the biggest consumer electronics thing to happen this year. Yet it is nowhere to be found. The RIO Carbon? Someone needs to update the list.

      They list Opera 8, which was a nice update to 7, but they don't mention 8.5 where the browser went free.

      They don't mention Nintendogs. Say what you will about the "game," it is definitely a defining game of the year, in much the same way that Katamari was last year. They also claim that the PSP was the first
      • As grandparent said, this list was published MONTHS ago. I received this issue as a promotion in the spring. The nano wasn't even a blip on the radar yet. I have a feeling this was more like a best products list of 2004 year in review type thing more than a current year evaluation. They probably just use the current year as a promotional thing to sell magazines.

  • surprisingly? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cryptoz ( 878581 ) <jns@jacobsheehy.com> on Sunday October 02, 2005 @10:36AM (#13698254) Homepage Journal
    There *are* better things out there than the iPod. How is this surprising? And when you have such a generalized list...well, you will always get strange results. What was the criteria for determining a product that would make the list?

    • Re:surprisingly? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @11:03AM (#13698351)
      There *are* better things out there than the iPod. How is this surprising?

      Especially since it's about products of 2005; the iPod debuted in 2001.

      • >Especially since it's about products of 2005; the iPod debuted in 2001.

        What's that got to do with it? Debuting before this year doesn't mean it's no longer a product.

        This is easily demonstrated by the fact that the iPod is on the list.

        As are more than a few other products that debuted before 2005, such as Google, and Photoshop Elements.

        • Re:surprisingly? (Score:2, Insightful)

          by jZnat ( 793348 ) *
          Well, it's still 2001 technology; it's not like the iPod has gotten much better other than slimming down and featuring more space. The iPod Photo is a step forward towards catching up with established players like the iRiver, but it's no longer "the best" as Apple has lagged behind in the feature support like decent battery life, audio formats, the ability to turn the screen and/or player off when not in use, and other internals. Back in 2001, sure, I'd place it in the top 100 (probably even top 10), but
          • The iPod has decent battery life, though it's no longer as good relative to the rest of the field as it once was. iPod audio format support is actually really good - all iPods except the shuffle support six different formats (AAC, MP3, WAV, AIFF, Apple Lossless, and Audible). No, they don't support Ogg Vorbis or FLAC, but most of the players that do don't support all the formats the iPod does, either. Most non-iPod MP3 players I see seem to support two or three formats, usually MP3, WMA and maybe something

          • Re:surprisingly? (Score:3, Insightful)

            by BasilBrush ( 643681 )
            Which would matter if it wasn't for the fact that the other players have lagged behind in controller technology, ease of use, and integration with computer and music store. i.e. the important stuff.

      • But it didn't get really good until the click wheel.

    • Re:surprisingly? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by node 3 ( 115640 )
      There *are* better things out there than the iPod. How is this surprising?

      It's surprising given that the iPod usually takes a couple of slots in the top ten on lists like these.

      And when you have such a generalized list...well, you will always get strange results. What was the criteria for determining a product that would make the list?

      Yeah, that's just it. Why would the iPod fare lower than a hard drive? Or a Rio mp3 player?

      I mean, if I were going to bet on whether an iPod or a Rio would rate higher on a "b
    • Still seems odd to see only one iPod on the list, at #78. And that iPod isn't even the one that sells (well, sold) the most.

      I mean, the Treo 650 is known for being somewhat buggy (heck, there's a lawsuit about it), and it can make #10.

      And the Seagate USB 2.0 pocket drive at #8? A mini does all that does plus play music. It even has the same style of hard drive.

      So, yeah, it seems odd.

  • I'm suprised at the wide variety of products. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by keeleysam ( 792221 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @10:40AM (#13698263) Homepage Journal
    Over the years, PC World has becaome very toned down, and I see them only reviewing full PC's, never individual components.

    To see products like:
    NVidia GeForce 6600 GT Graphics Board
    Seagate Barracuda 7200.8 SATA NCQ Internal Hard Drive
    Plextor PX-716UF Rewritable DVD Drive
    Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe Motherboard

    That was a nice suprise, and even though I may not agree with the list, it was still interesting to see what they picked.
    • On the whole you're right, PC World has long since outlived its usefulness... it focuses on the merchandising and mainstream products but usually only catches onto a new, cool device months (years?) after the fact. By the time PC World is trumpeting the 6600GT Graphics Board, the 7800GT is released making it obsolete.

      At one point it was THE magazine to read if you were a home mod hobbiest, or you wanted to know what's going on in the industry. The internet has killed these types of magazines off for the

  • 2005, really? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Thantos_42 ( 899354 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @10:40AM (#13698264)
    Are we to believe that all those things came about in 2005? The wikipedia article on wikipedia, for instance, mentions that "Wikipedia began as a complement to the expert-written Nupedia on January 15, 2001. "

    • Re:2005, really? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by gmuslera ( 3436 )
      Probably the date means "we wrote a review about this in 2005", maybe before 2005 they had no clue about what is the Wikipedia. You know, for them no product exist before they write a review about it.

      And, of course, "best" in this case means "between all we reviewed, this is what we remember to like most", that could or not coincide with your or the rest of the world opinion or an hypotetical, objective truth.

      • Not to forget bang for the bucks, Nvidia 7800 might be more powerfull but for the money it cost it might be kinda dumb to buy it, especially since the power boost is almost meaningless outside an SLI rig, of course the alpha antialiaising is a great addition but again, its all about power per buck I guess...

        And a product invented in 2001 might still be the best of the crop in 2005...
  • ...... no

    but Wikipedia did.

  • ads (Score:5, Insightful)

    by minus_273 ( 174041 ) <aaaaaNO@SPAMSPAM.yahoo.com> on Sunday October 02, 2005 @10:43AM (#13698274) Journal
    why do some of these products just seem like ads? Its hard not to laugh when you come up on something like this :

    "Microsoft Windows Media Player 10 Media Player" . I have no idea how media player is the best media player. The article cant explain it either. hmmm
    • To be precise, it even says:
      All Products Listed by Ranking
      (...)
      47. Microsoft Windows Media Player 10
      If a distant (and disputed, as by parent) 47th rank is all they can score in the Top 100 for an entire year, and as the whole list seems so heavily populated by penguins (and related species), maybe in Redmond now they ought to worry even more, e.g. about their role as an "innovation leader"...

    • Re:ads (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Dylan Zimmerman ( 607218 ) <Bob_Zimmerman&myrealbox,com> on Sunday October 02, 2005 @12:05PM (#13698628)
      Please note that iTunes at number 34 is also marked as a Media Player. Thus, the words after the link just describe what the product is rather than saying "This is the best _______".

      Also, Windows Media Player 10 is much better than some of the previous ones with respect to interface. And compatibility, too.

      Goodness it's hard to say that with a straight face. I mean, come on. QuickTime 7 beats it hands down in quite a few respects (Mmm. Decent H.264), and even then, QT7 isn't the best media player out there for everything.

  • Product Inflation (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Mulletproof ( 513805 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @10:43AM (#13698276) Homepage Journal
    Um, GMail? Now I know we love google and all, but its web-based email. Admittedly, it has more storage than its competitor, but I'm still missing the part that makes it thesecond best product of 2005. Are we that hard up for products? Of course when it comes to "Top Ten" lists such as these opinions are like armpits, but web-based email? I wouldn't have put it in the top 20, to be honest with you, but that's just IMFreakinO. Number two???? Sigh.

    • Re:Product Inflation (Score:4, Insightful)

      by David Horn ( 772985 ) <david&pocketgamer,org> on Sunday October 02, 2005 @10:54AM (#13698320) Homepage
      Sorry, I agree with the article. Gmail is the best web-based mail package hands down. I forward all my email to my Gmail account now.
      • Sure, its a nice web based email service, but is it really the second best product out there? Do you really think it is better than all the gizmos and gadgets that have come out in recent years?

        I know I'll get modded down for this, but I'll say it anyways. The primary reason Gmail got as popular as it currently is is because they used the Eric Cartman "You can't come" business technique by requiring people to be "invited" in. I mean they have been in Beta for a year and a half now, are they ever planni

        • Well, firstly, they've opened it up to general use via their mobile phone sign-up thing (which I believe is only in the US though, at the moment).

          But I also think it helped that Gmail is a fast, simple webmail service that works well. Hotmail etc had dropped my expectations of webmail quality to such an extent that, to paraphrase jwz, I considered a good webmail system to be one that didn't irritate the living fuck out of me.

          The invitation thing helped drive the PR etc - your Cartman analogy is spot on the

    • Re:Product Inflation (Score:5, Informative)

      by MrHanky ( 141717 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @10:59AM (#13698336) Homepage Journal
      GMail is good web based email. That in itself sets it far ahead of its competitors. It's really the finest example of what a web interface can do.

    • Re:Product Inflation (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      I believe I have gmail to thank for massively increased quotas on my school servers, and of course Yahoo! and Hotmail store lots more stuff now too

  • 2005 is not over... (Score:5, Funny)

    by seven of five ( 578993 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @10:43AM (#13698277)
    They're confident that nothing good will be introduced in October , November or December?

    • Re:2005 is not over... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Ah, the perils of publishing. I remember in the early Fall of 1989 seeing a great many glossy books and magazines that celebrated the great events that happened over the past decade. Then the Berlin Wall came down. Oops!
    • They're confident that nothing good will be introduced in October , November or December?

      Well, if we're going by the year so far...

    • They're confident that nothing good will be introduced in October , November or December?

      Ever notice that for most companies, the fiscal year ends in September?

  • One glaring ommission (Score:4, Funny)

    by bigtallmofo ( 695287 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @10:44AM (#13698279)
    I checked the list several times but I couldn't find "Slashdot using CSS" anywhere!

  • Raw list?? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @10:47AM (#13698293)
    I actually clicked the link to RTFA for once. And then all I see is a list! Surely they should specify what the ranking is based on? For me, security and reliability is important. For some people, it's ease of use. And for others, it's whether the icons use cartoon characters. Free advice to PC World: put some context as to what the ranking is based on! What were the criteria? And, if the criterias didnt weigh equally let us know that too?
  • I know we all love google and all their products, and sure enough - google desktop search is on the list. However, this might be a good opportunity to mention Yahoo desktop search [yahoo.com] which is a far better tool imho.

  • Interesting that... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jpellino ( 202698 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @11:03AM (#13698354)
    ... only one of the PC World top ten is wintel dependent. Glad to see the blinders are off in this increasingly egalitarian tech world. Compare their 2000 list. And then there's this gem from 1998: "But you won't read much here about ADSL, Net PCs, or USB, among other hyped technologies." Yeah - glad to see we didn't get hoodwinked into that USB nonsense.

  • Treo? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by mdm144 ( 616817 )
    I wonder if they actually tried to use a Treo 650 for an extended period of time. If they had to deal with the constant hard resets and lock-ups, I don't think it would have been number 10 on the list.

  • Strangely strange (Score:4, Interesting)

    by FishandChips ( 695645 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @11:21AM (#13698421) Journal
    They seem to stick to the big names, perhaps because they are the names that provide a healthy chunk of the magazine's advertising? Perish the thought.

    Unless I've completely missed them, strange they've omitted Open Office 2 (even if in beta), Debian Sarge (on which so much other software is based) and the Epox EP-9NPA+ Ultra nForce 4 motherboards which do what the tier one boards do only more stably and less expensively. Instead there is an overrated Asus board, a marque so beloved of the "independent" tests run in Tom's Hardware that it seems to win them all before even being switched on. In addition, HalfLife 2 may have been massive but arguably Battlefield 2 has given more fun to more folks without the Valve/Steam online nightmare.

    Just my 2 cents.
    • "strange they've omitted Open Office 2 . . . Debian Sarge"

      Well ... I only read PC World on a few occasions but when I do it seems like it's "Windows World" rather than "PC World." As it stands I'm surprised to see OSX on the list. Seriously, though, most issues I've seen are "Best Windows Utilities" or "Tweak Windows YOUR Way!" or "Stop Spyware Forever!" Now obviously Win32 users are their target demographic, but I think my point still stands.

    • Re:Strangely strange (Score:2, Informative)

      by j!mmy v. ( 613784 )
      "Battlefield 2 has given more fun to more folks?"

      That's the craziest shit I've heard in days, and I've been watching the Cooking Channel, too. Battlefield 2 is THE buggiest shit-crap beta game I've EVER played.

      Even the developers agree [eagames.com].

      Steam may have had issues, but they're mostly worked-out, and Steam/HL2 are mostly mature, or close to it. You're very, very silly to put them in the same room as BF2.
  • The latest versions of GIMP (the open-source graphics software) and Blogger (Google's blogging tool) are chock-full of improvements. I use both of them on a daily basis for my blog (http://sunandfun.blogspot.com/ [blogspot.com])

  • Treo 650? Guess he hever had to Support Them (Score:5, Interesting)

    by puto ( 533470 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @11:48AM (#13698548) Homepage
    Well I guess this should be take as a grain of salt.

    I work for a large US cell carrier. I support devices across the data end, pda side, well everything on our network.

    The 650 is the largest hunk of junk that EVER crossed the PDA world. About 1 in 50 work properly.

    And the 650 is used mostly by non techies. Realtors, doctors, lawyers. And salesguys, and people who think it is cool to lug it around. Which is fine.

    We have to replace them out at an alarming rate. Exchanges through the roof. One multinational manufacture of corporate jets, had to have 5 sent to him in one week. I personally oversaw the case, and each unit. Two screens died, one had the white screen of death, and another would not let itself be unlocked for international use..

    Not to mention early models only supporting palm branded blue tooth devices.

    And a PDA that needs a 30 meg update download? Try telling this to the exec on the go.

    I am operating system agnostic, as well as eqipment. I am 35 years old and been in tech all of my life, and never NEVER has anything made me cringe when an escalation hits my desk, and it is usually a 650.

    I wish these reviewers would not use it for a week and then write a review. They need to do a Car and Driver six month review. They would change their tune.

    Puto

    • Re:Treo 650? Guess he hever had to Support Them (Score:5, Informative)

      by aCC ( 10513 ) * on Sunday October 02, 2005 @01:22PM (#13699041) Homepage
      It's strange that you had such bad experiences them because you seem to be quite alone with that as far as I know.

      I have one for some months now and I absolutely love it. I occasionally read the forums for treo users (mytreo.net, treocentral.com, ...) and I haven't seen anything like you mention on there. And those forums are normally very quick in showing if a product has problems. Like they did when the first version had problems with the memory which finally got resolved by Palm. I have the GSM version, so maybe it's the CDMA version that you have problems with?

      Personally I think it is finally a usable pda-phone that works as it should. I can totally recommend it.
    • >And a PDA that needs a 30 meg update download?

      Actually, you need 11 megabytes free on the device to upgrade the firmware. [palm.com] Arguably, execs on the go shouldnt even be doing this, their IT departments should be handling system updates. You wouldnt want them to upgrade from 2000 to XP on their own would you?

      Granted, it is overhyped, but it does a lot of things people want. I just wish it wasnt so big and ugly.
      • Sorry, should have said the download of the patch to the pc os approx 30 megs.

        And a lot of IT departments handle the updates, but I would say the majority of the users are people off the street and bought them. Real execs have secretaries or assistants at beck and call.

        Also you might want to include this link http://www.palm.com/us/support/downloads/treo650up dater/sprint_dl.html Which is not who I work for, but the instructions for each carrier are as about as long.

        Nothing plug and play about them. Ha

  • frankly, this list sucks (Score:2, Insightful)

    by js3 ( 319268 )
    seriously, gmail #2? firefox #1? We are talking about products here, not services or stuff you like. I would have liked to see more tangible things I didn't know about like.. you know real products.
  • This 24" wide-screen panel made the list - I'm currently looking into buying the relatively affordable smaller kin of this, namely the 2005FPW - any current owners got any thought about it?

    (Sorry for veering a bit off-topic.)
    • I have a co-worker who has one of these. It's absolutely amazing. No dead pixels on his model. I'm thinking of requesting one for myself at work, and maybe buying one at home. If the price gets down to $900 or less I might seriously consider it.
    • love it. (coming from a big bad old CRT)
      The aspect ratio allows one to code on one side, results on another. Without having to mess with dual cards or Xinerama, etc. You can connect various sources to it, example: DVI and tratitional din. And a button cycles through.
      Quite bright too. I used to want a glow-in-the-dark keyboard...

      No dead pels.

      Also, sometimes Dell bundles it with a low end p4 box for cheap.

      It has hdcma or whatever that copy protection crud is too.

      Cheers,
      -b

  • What? (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ShadowMarth ( 870657 )
    I'd hate to come off as a fanboy, but the fact that PSP made a decent appearance on the list while the DS didn't touch it makes me question the research behind it. Shouldn't a device centered around software actually HAVE decent software to make this list? Sony's even been crippling homebrew, which negates its best use so far.
    • ---Sony's even been crippling homebrew, which negates its best use so far.

      Homebrew MY ASS!!!

      That's MY fucking machine which I PAID FOR. Any crap YOU put on there prior to selling it to me will BE RIPPED OFF. And I WILL tell others about it (yes, perferrably not to buy it), and how to bypass retard-checks.
  • Mine's *much* too loud! And I ordered the acoustic dampening, too. [robert.to]. Anyway, they lost credibility by putting OS-X on the list.

  • Alienware?? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Sunday October 02, 2005 @12:31PM (#13698771) Journal
    Why's an Alienware computer ranked so highly, even above Google?

    God, that must be a hell of a computer... Or a hell of a sponsoring.

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