Wired did a top 10 gadgets list for the year, and I was really surprised to see that I have three of them. I have the Canon S95 (#9), the Samsung Focus (#4) and a Kinect (#3).
The Canon was a big surprise. As I wrote last fall, this is the first time I've been really happy with few reservations about a point-and-shoot, especially one this small. Little cameras are notorious for substandard glass and noise, but this one doesn't suffer much from those issues. Manual control and raw files are awesome. Control scheme is killer. It's such a great camera.
The Focus, which has kind of become the embodiment of Windows Phone 7 (unless you're on T-Mobile, where it's the HD7), really is a great phone. The annoyance about where they put the power button not withstanding, I really don't miss my iPhone at all. In fact, when I go back to use my iPhone (for the Chase check depositing, and the remote app for the Apple TV), I've come to appreciate just how much better the WP7 navigation paradigm is superior, and far more consistent across apps.
I've had Kinect now since some time over the summer, when I was beta testing it, and I think the first time I saw it in real life was in February. Back then it seemed kind of a novel trick, but I worried that the novelty might wear off the way it did with the Wii (for us, anyway). Now that it's out in production, and the games have matured, I see that it actually has a lot of potential for things no one has yet thought of. We've only really played Kinect Adventures, but I did get Dance Central as well. Feedback from others over the fitness "games" has been good too. It's like magic.
The surprising thing about the iPad, which is #1 on the list, is that I never bought one. When they first announced it, I was sure I would. But then it was released, and I didn't. I wanted to, but when I really got down to it, I couldn't justify it. The things that I would use it for were already being well served by my laptop(s) or phone (iPhone at the time). It's not like I'm not enamored with Apple products, because God knows I want the new MacBook Air (#7 on the list).
Overall, I was pretty good about not getting gadget crazy this year. Probably has something to do with having a baby. My hardware line item was much smaller for the year.
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