NetBoxie

My favorite gadget this year is the Motorola Droid. (See our review of the Droid[link] and, if you’re a subscirber, our Ratings of smartphones for more information.) When I bought mine in November, it ended two years of waiting for an iPhone-like device compatible with Verizon. I love its versatility: Most of the apps I used on my iPod Touch (or their equivalents) are available for the Droid. I’ve already used apps to make dinner reservations (Open Table), tweet (Twidroid), watch lectures (Mother TED), record and upload videos (YouTube), act as a wireless 3G USB-modem for my netbook (PDAnet), scan bar codes (ShopSavvy), and check the weather (Weather Channel). I can’t wait for the release of the mobile version of Firefox. One of my favorite features is the notifications window, which shows, on a single screen, everything that requires your attention—voicemails, unread e-mail, text messages, appointments, etc.

Downsides? A few: It’s bulky, most apps don’t yet support multitouch (pinch to zoom), and the video recorder doesn’t appear to have a zoom function. But those are small potatoes, considering that I can replace the battery myself and buy/charge spares, which I couldn’t do with an iPhone. —Jeff Fox

My favorite electronics gadget of ’09 is the Cambridge Soundworks i765 iPod/Video Entertainment System. It’s a sleek-looking tabletop radio cum speaker system cum CD/DVD player that’s perched on my kitchen counter. The sound is full, rich, and gorgeous. I dock my iPod in it, play CDs, listen to the radio—I could even pop in a DVD and connect it to a TV if I wanted to. It may not be cutting-edge but it does all I want and then some, and looks great doing it. Taking a leaf from Paul Eng’s book, I’m just setting up a new Blu-ray player with Netflix that promises to be another favorite. I’ll let you know. —Eileen McCooey

With camera competition fierce, fine overall performance was the norm more than ever among this year’s crop of point-and-shoots. What mostly made models stand out were innovative special features.

My favorite such example this year is the Nikon Coolpix S1000pj, a camera that integrated a built-in projector. Sure, we had a few minor quibbles about the feature, and the Nikon isn’t cheap at $350. But overall, we found it to be a solid performer with a delightful additional capability. —Terry Sullivan

Apple has a reputation for building great computers, of course. But the company is also known for its high prices. Its all-in-one computers, however, are more price-competitive with Windows all-in-ones. Case in point: The new 21.5-inch iMac costs $1,200, right in line with other all-in-one systems. Even better, performance was excellent. (See our closer look at Apple’s new iMacs and, if you’re a subscriber, our Ratings of Desktop computers for more information.)

Worst product: Computer manufacturers got the not-so-bright idea to use Atom processors—the low-powered chips used in netbooks—for desktop computers. The result was underwhelming. Sure, prices were great at less than $400. But performance was poor. And the cost-cutting affected the systems across the board. We found that the displays and sound in these all-in-one nettops were only fair to poor. —Donna Tapellini

Ever since I completed my dedicated home theater—which includes a 1080p front-projector, 106-inch screen, and a 7.2-channel Martin Logan speaker system—I haven’t really lusted after a lot of gear. (OK, I did add a new Ferrari-red Pro-Ject turntable and matching tube pre-amp, but that’s because my old turntable was broken). But this year, my Christmas list contained not a single consumer electronics device—until I came across the sleek, sexy Olive 4HD Hi-Fi Music Server, from Olive Media.

If you’ve ever thought that digitized music had to have an inferior sound, the 4HD will change your mind: 24-bit/192kHz oversampling for high-resolution sound, the ability to store rip and store 6,000 CDs or 20,000 individual tracks without a PC, and the ability to send the music to any room of your house via optional Olive 2 Hi-Fi players. And you can use the 4HD as an outboard DAC (digital-to-analog converter) for your other gear. To get you started, the company will rip up to 100 of your CDs free of charge if you buy the 4HD (you can send them all your CDs and they’ll load them into the system for a nominal charge), plus give you 12 free HD tracks from Chesky Records.

Now for the down side: It costs $2,000. Sure that’s a lot, especially in this economy, but as I told my wife, can you really put a price tag on happiness? Unfortunately, she said you can, and did. Maybe it’ll be cheaper next Christmas. —James K. Willcox

What gadgets did you love—and loved to hate!—this year? Speak your mind in our Comments section.

Happy New Year!