We all know that Macs are very good but very expensive, right? No longer. I surprised even myself by naming the Apple MacBook the best laptop under £1,000, and the new iMac may turn out to be my bank manager's best friend in the next couple of months.
A few weeks ago I had a session of Heavenly Sword on PS3 then switched over to some bowling action on the Wii. And if there was an Xbox around, I would have given that a whirl too. So I'm gonna say they're all great and they've made 2007 the year when having more than one console no longer makes you a geek.
James Rivington, Writer: Nvidia's GeForce 8800 GT graphics card has well and truly broken the mould when it comes to PC cards. It's almost as fast as the market-leading 8800 GTX and yet costs £230 less. Never before have we seen such a cutting-edge, powerful graphics card at such a ludicrous and fantastic price. Plus, its 65nm architecture means it's a much slimmer card that takes up less space inside your PC and pumps out a lot less heat.
You may have seen Pioneer's quirky Kuro adverts on TV, but until you've actually seen one in person you can't imagine how fantastic they are. LCD makers like to display their sets in bright showrooms to make the TV's blacks look more black. Pioneer showed off its Kuros in moodily lit rooms and the blacks are still deep and rich. You've got to see it to believe it. If you're in the market - and if you can afford one - the Pioneer Kuro is the TV to buy in 2007.
Sony's PlayStation 3 console may have gotten a lot of criticism this year, but it's still a fantastic bit of kit. It's unbelievably powerful; it runs smooth and silent (unlike my editor's Xbox); it starts up in just a few seconds; the interface is slick and easy to navigate; and when the big games arrive in 2008 it's going to be hot property. It's even affordable now - you can get one for under £280. So while it may have a tarnished reputation, the PS3 is on the way up.
Gary Marshall, writer: I'm nominating Windows Vista and OS X Leopard as my tech of the year. Not because they rocked my world - they didn't. But because they proved once and for all that operating systems really don't matter any more. Even the pirates can't be bothered downloading them.
The most useful thing was RSS. Not a glamorous choice, I know, but superb for keeping on top of stuff. Comments on my Flickr photos, new pics uploaded by my friends, tedious updates from Facebook... it's all in my newsreader so I don't have to go hunting for it. Excellent.
I thought the iPhone was proof that Apple could sell any old crap to fanboys. But then I used one... And then I bought one. For all its flaws, the iPhone gets right what so many firms have got wrong for years. So while on paper it's no smarter than an O2 XDA, in your hands it's a wonder gadget. EDGE is still rubbish, though.
J Mark Lytle, Contributing Editor: Living and working in Tokyo makes me spoilt for choice when it comes to new technology, however this year's standout is a no-brainer that gets the single recommendation I'll be handing out. RFID technology is nothing new and phone companies here have been sticking the chips in phones for a couple of years now, but it's the widespread acceptance of these 'wallet' phones as e-cash that won me over in 2007.
