As 2011 nears its expiration date you've probably already wrapped up your holiday shopping and are looking forward to the year-end celebrations with your loved ones – and, well, find out what they got for you. Being the tech fanatics that we are we'd also like to take a moment and look back at what 2011 had to offer, from the greatest computer hardware produced to some of the cool gadgets you shouldn't have missed.
We've used our Product Finder engine to selectively pick this year's standout products in over twenty categories as reviewed by hundreds of seasoned specialists across the web. You'll find each product listed alongside its aggregate review score, brief quote and number of reviews. Who knows, maybe you'll find something worthy of a last-minute indulgence.
3 products Graphics Cards
3 products Input Devices
3 products Monitors
3 products Motherboards
3 products Printers
3 products Routers
2 products PC Audio
3 products Storage
3 products Processors
3 products Desktop PCs
2 products Laptops
5 products Tablets
3 products Smartphones
6 products Camcorders
3 products Cameras
3 products Headsets
3 products Home Audio & Video
3 products TVs
3 products
Cases
Corsair Obsidian 650D
Having inspected every nook and cranny of the Corsair Obsidian 650D, we have no doubt it's a high-quality product that shines in virtually every category. Perhaps the only true weakness of Corsair's new arrival is its price. At $190, we're...
Cooler Master Storm Trooper
Cooler Master's Storm Trooper is possibly the best full tower case we've ever reviewed, at least for gamers and other performance fiends. At $190, we feel the enclosure is hard to beat. There are at least half a dozen worthy contenders that are...
Corsair Graphite 600T Special Edition White
The Corsair 600T is truly a showstopper! The overall look of the 600T, especially the color scheme, is outstanding. The built in fan controller, which can control up to four fans, is a great addition to the 600T, giving people the control they need...
Graphics Cards
HIS Radeon HD 6850 IceQ X Turbo
The HIS Radeon HD 6850 IceQ X Turbo remains one of the best options available to gamers shopping for a sub-$200 GPU, it features 454 million less transistors than the Radeon HD 5850's Cypress XT core, this allowed AMD to shrink the die from 334mm2 to 255mm2, making the Radeon HD 6850 more...
MSI GeForce GTX 560 Ti Twin Frozr 2 OC
We feel strongly that MSI has done an excellent job building a video card around the GeForce GTX 560 Ti GPU. MSI's Twin Frozr II heatsink and fan combo does exactly what it claims to. We are impressed with the temperature of this video cards At...
Sapphire Radeon HD 6870 Flex Edition
A superb choice for both work and play. For anyone that is looking to upgrade their workstation desktop to have three or more monitors, the SAPPHIRE FleX Radeon HD 6870 makes a superb choice. With the FleX solution SAPPHIRE has created, this has...
Input Devices
Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth Edition
The Razer BlackWidow Ultimate Stealth is the quieter edition of Razer's popular mechanical keyboard; however, softening the sound has left the typing experience a little stiffer....
SteelSeries Sensei
The Sensei is really a top of the line gaming-grade mouse thanks to three factors: the ExactTech, the high level of resolution, and great configuration features. We do think it's worth noting that the software isn't user-friendly, and two of...
Roccat Kova+
The Kova was fantastic, and the Kova[+] now adds Roccat's great software into the mix. We'd recommend this one for...
Monitors
Asus PA238Q
The Asus PA238Q is an incredible, all-round package - something I have not seen in a long time. It manages to do almost everything right, down to its ergonomics options, input ports, and to color reproduction and no. of options to tinker around...
Asus VG278H
The Asus VG278H is our number one pick for anybody who wants to try 3D. Low ghosting times make 2D games look great and 3D titles benefit from the absence of crosstalk. As long as you have enough pairs of 3D glasses to go around, it's also great for...
NEC MultiSync PA301W
The NEC MultiSync PA301W is a professional grade 30-inch display offering excellent color and grayscale performance at a premium price. Buy it...
Motherboards
Gigabyte GA-X58A-OC
The Gigabyte X58A-OC motherboard is an overclocking motherboard in every sense of the word. There are so many features to this board that make it perfect for overclocking. That being said I really cannot put this motherboard in the same category as...
Asus Rampage 3 Extreme Black Edition
This is the most feature-rich board we have seen to date. It comes with all the bells, whistles and fog horns and much more to satisfy overclockers. The build quality is top notch, on-board troubleshooting options are great, the add-on Thunderbolt...
Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7
The Gigabyte GA-990FXA-UD7 is definitely a pearl of a board, but there are still flaws that need to be worked out. 4-way SLI / CFx, tons of overclocking options and rock stability during the testing really vouch for this board to be Gigabyte's AMD...
Printers
Kodak Hero 7.1 All-in-One Printer
The Kodak Hero 7.1 shares the elegant style of the rest of the Hero multifunction range, with an exceptionally broad selection of connectivity plus an auto-duplex function, a large responsive touchscreen, separate photo paper tray and memory card...
Canon Pixma MG6250
The Canon MG6250 is a great option for people who are big into photography. It has an excellent scanner and produces very high quality photo prints. There's plenty more on offer, including Wi-Fi and Ethernet support, direct CD/DVD printing and dual...
Epson Stylus Photo R3000
The Epson Stylus Photo R3000 A3+ printer is capable of stunningly high print quality for both black and white and colour prints, and once setup correctly, the printer performs admirably. It's well specified for its target market place and capable of...
Routers
Belkin F7D8301 Play N600HD Wireless Dual-Band N+ Router
The Belkin Play Max N600 HD Wireless N Dual-Band Router is a router that is suitable for those who don't want to get their hands dirty on manual configurations or don't know much about networking. You simply open the package, follow the...
Linksys E1200 Wireless-N Router
Excellent throughput, easy setup, and a great price make Cisco Linksys E1200 Wireless-N Router our favorite single-band router Buy it...
PC Audio
Corsair SP2500
The SP2500 is one of the highest-quality 2.1 speaker sets manufactured today. The set performs phenomenally in every listening area, but what makes it worth the $250 price tag is the astounding performance/low distortion in extremely loud playback...
Creative Sound Blaster Recon3D USB
This USB sound card is a niche product tailor-made for gamers. It's ideal for its intended purpose, but musicians and home cinema enthusiasts should look elsewhere...
Logitech Z-906
Whether you're using the Z906 in the office or living room, it delivers a very impressive sound with depth, punch and decent detail reproduction. And although its techy design is better suited to a desk than a TV stand, build quality is extremely...
Storage
Kingston HyperX SSD Series SATA600
They say a picture paints a thousand words. So how many does this paint?Back at the start we wondered if the decision to put the highly respected Hyper X brand onto an SSD, especially when they hadn't done so even with their speedy SSD Now V+...
OCZ Vertex 3 Series SATA600
The OCZ Vertex 3 has a slim 2.5" design, measuring 99.8 x 69.63 x 9.3mm and weighing just 77 grams, it consumes two watts of power when in use and just 0.5 watts in standby. The 240GB model packs read and write speeds of 550MB/s -...
Crucial RealSSD M4 C400 256GB SATA600
The RealSSD C400 represents a mild performance gain over last year's C300 during light workloads, it's handily dispatched by competing drives from OCZ and Intel when it comes to heavy multitasking, but that's okay if the C400's price reflects its inferior performance and it does – there's nothing wrong with delivering an entry-level...
Processors
AMD Fusion A8-3850 2.9GHz Socket FM1
AMD's A8-3850 chip brings better-than-ever gaming muscle to on-chip graphics. Just make sure you opt for speedy RAM if gaming frame rates are a top priority....
Intel Core i5 2500K 3.3GHz Socket 1155
The Intel Core i5 2500K operates at 3.30GHz and can reach as high as 3.70GHz when using Turbo Boost.It features a 6MB L3 cache and uses the HD Graphics 3000...
Intel Core i7 2600K 3.4GHz Socket LGA 1155
The Intel Core i7-2600K CPU is a super fast performer which thanks to its unlocked multiplier can also be overclocked like a monster....
Desktop PCs
Apple iMac 27 inch - Spring 2011
With super-charged components and a best-in-class screen, this top-of-the line iMac provides an excellent platform for digital-graphics-focused users....
Sapphire Edge-HD2 Mini PC
The Sapphire Edge HD2 is truly an all inclusive Mini-PC Solution. The package comes with everything needed to setup a kiosk or home media frontend and The new Pineview chipset further shows how versatile this Mini PC can be with Media and office...
Laptops
Asus N75SF - Intel Core i7
If you put aesthetics to one side for a second, the N75SF is a pearl. It's quiet to use and has all the functionality you could want (Blu-ray and USB 3.0, wide touchpad). The well-contrasted screen and high performance processor and graphics card...
Apple MacBook Air 13.3 inch Summer 2011
The latest and, at 13 inches, largest version of the MacBook Air series is undoubtedly the best. Over the previous generations it offers a better processor, a backlit keyboard and a Thunderbolt connector, while leaving everything that made its...
Alienware M17X R3 - Intel Core i7
The Alienware M17x R3 is a class-leading entrant into the 17.3-inch gaming notebook market. Its outstanding design, AlienFX lighting system, and excellent performance make it ideal for gamers and multimedia enthusiasts. Other highlights of the machine...
Apple MacBook Pro 15.4 inch Winter 2011
We love the Apple MacBook Pro. It looks great, build quality is beyond any of its rivals, and it has the performance to match. It's a shame the company hasn't updated the styling from previous models, but there's virtually nothing to...
HP EliteBook 8560P - Intel Core i5
HP's EliteBook 8560p is chunky, solid and looks like a piece of industrial equipment. In a way, it is. The magnesium alloy chassis is absolutely gorgeous, and feels like it could take some pretty hard knocks.
Tablets
Apple iPad 2 3G
The iPad 2 remains the tablet to beat, even though its improvements represent just a satisfying aesthetic and spec evolution over its predecessor. Apple iPad 2: Tablet Is Thinner, Lighter, Faster to Use Apple iPad 2 with Wi-Fi + 3G 16GB Review, by...
Asus Eee Pad Transformer TF101
Asus has put together what I think is the best of any of the Android tablets to date. While it's not as thin as the 10 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab. it has a great deal more functionality thanks to the well thought out keyboard peripheral. I actually...
Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
I really admire that Samsung was able to react so swiftly to changes in the marketplace between the time it initially announced the original, thicker Galaxy Tab 10.1 and time that it was to come to market. The company's ability to scrap the old...
Smartphones
Apple iPhone 4S
The iPhone 4S may not have a radically brand new design or some of the features that other top-tier smartphones do these days (such as a larger screen or 4G connectivity), but offers what is arguably the best smartphone experience of any device on...
Samsung Galaxy S 2 GT-i9100
This part of the review is easy: The Samsung Galaxy S II is the best Android smartphone available on the market today. If you can ignore a few tiny niggles like missing NFC support and some Samsung bloatware, it's darn near perfect otherwise. Pros:...
Nokia Lumia 800
There is, quite simply, no better Windows Phone smartphone on the market than the Nokia Lumia 800. It features wonderful hardware in terms of both design and quality, and Microsoft's operating system runs more smoothly on the Lumia than on any other...
Samsung Galaxy Note GT-N7000
For a mobile phone, the Note has a big old footprint but it's reasonably slim and not excessively heavy. It does everything you would expect of a high-end Android handset, but when it comes to all the other stuff we use our smartphones for, it...
Samsung Galaxy Nexus GT-I9250
The Galaxy Nexus is the best smartphone on the market right now. But right around the corner we'll see a device that is likely to fix every shortcoming of the Galaxy Nexus (battery life, poor camera, pentile display): the Galaxy S III. While no...
T-Mobile G2X Optimus Speed 2X / P990
A vanilla UI and dual-core power combined with open hardware make the G2X one of the best Android phones to dateThe LG T-Mobile G2X and its cousin from across the pond the Optimus 2X show us LG is serious about getting into the high-end Android market...
Camcorders
Sony HDR-TD10
Fun, easy and effective 3D video with the option of 2D video at any phase makes the TD10 an excellent choice for bringing depth to your scenes.Sony Electronics, Inc...
Panasonic HDC-SD90
Panasonic's HDC-SD90 records Full HD 1920 x 1080/50p video to SDHC and SDXC cards and is part of the firm's 1MOS range for 2011. It's an AVCHD model aimed, primarily, at people who want an HD camcorder with a wide range of features and...
JVC Everio GS-TD1
The JVC Everio GS-TD1 redefines what we can expect of a 3D camcorder. This shooter may be a tad cumbersome, but compared to a pro-rig it's a masterpiece of compact engineering. We loved the unparalleled creative control on offer, and 3D image...
Cameras
Sony Alpha SLT-A77
The Sony Alpha 77 is a success on all fronts: its electronic viewfinder is good enough to silence critics (including us) as it avoids most of the usual pitfalls; the camera's performances are at least excellent and sometimes outstanding; and on top...
Panasonic Lumix DMC-FZ150
Like the FZ47, the Panasonic Lumix FZ150 combines a 24x zoom with a 12-megapixel sensor in a compact design light enough to carry in your hand for hours, that puts all the controls that matter right at your fingertips. That makes it a pleasure to use...
Canon PowerShot S100
Pocket shooters looking for more of a challenge or advanced photographers who want a capable point-and-shoot will be fans of the S100's...
Headsets
Westone 4
The Westone 4 headphones are a class act! They've raised the bar for in-ear headphones ... and for audio products in general come to that. With the Westone 4 headphones in your pocket, there's no need to spend thousands on a home hi-fi system to...
Corsair Vengeance 1500
If you're feeling crunched for time and don't want to spend the next 10 minutes reading my in-depth review of Corsair's Vengeance 1500 USB gaming headset, well, don't. I'll do away with the teasers now and tell you to just go buy...
AKG Q 701
The AKG Q701s are a truly excellent pair of headphones, with which Quincy Jones can be proud to be associated. Their wide, flat and accurate sound puts them in a great position in competition with similarly priced headphones from Sennheiser, Beyer...
Home Audio & Video
Sonos Play:3
The Sonos Play:3 features three Class-D digital amplifiers and three drivers--one tweeter and two 3-inch mid-range drivers, as well as one passive, rear-firing bass radiator. The cabinet has volume and mute control and it measures up 5.2 x 10.5 x 6.3 inches (132 x 268 x 160 mm) while weighing in at 5.7 pounds (2.6...
Apple iPod Touch 4G 8GB / 32GB / 64GB
The iPod touch is now even slimmer (7.2mm), comes with iOS 5, and supports iCloud - a neat way of accessing your music and photo stream from anywhere via the web.
Cambridge Audio Sonata NP30
While the Cambridge Audio Sonata NP30 has hi-fi credentials with its native 24/96 streaming rate, but you'll need a decent system to appreciate it. You'll also need an iOS device to get the most out of it too. Due in Q4 this year, is the...
TVs
Panasonic TX-P55VT30
Panasonic has done it. This 50-inch plasma TV is a true home cinema heavyweight, in every sense of the word. The Panasonic TX-P50VT30B's backbreaking setup, however, is worth it for one of the most delectable performances of the year...
Panasonic TC-P50GT30
With both 2D and 3D content, Panasonic's TC-P50GT30 is a very good performer, and its well-rounded features package hits all of the desirable bases: Web-based video-on-demand, an included WiFi adapter, DLNA streaming, and even Skype video...
Samsung PN64D7000
With picture quality on par with the best TVs we've ever tested, the Samsung PND7000 plasma represents an excellent value for videophiles who don't demand to own the top of the...
Image credit: Circuit board tree background by Shutterstock