Each year we celebrate the very best products in each
category in our TrustedReviews awards. If you've not checked out this year's
results, do so now.
However, this 'best of' round-up is a little different.
We're going to look at the products that are important in another sense.
These gadgets mark a change, either for the market, or for
the company making them. And some of them will be product remembered for years
and years to come.
There are no real winners here, but if you want to know
which products are the sign of things to come then you've come to the right
place.
And if you think we've missed any, feel free to let us know
(politely) in the comments.
Sony Alpha A7
Perhaps the most exciting photographic announcement of the
year came only recently – the Sony Alpha A7 and A7R. They are the first compact
system cameras to have full-frame sensors. Using such a sensor makes these
cameras pretty cheap for their £1,200 starting price. DSLRs with such sensors are normally a good
deal more expensive.
They look good, feel good and produce excellent photos. To
really get the most out of the camera, though, you’ll need to invest in one of
the prime lenses rather than the kit lens. It’s no cheap solution to
pro-quality pictures, but it is a game-changing camera that arguably heralds
the beginning of the end for the DSLR.
Asus PQ321Q
Don’t worry if you’ve never heard of the Asus PQ321Q. Most
people haven’t. However, it is a fairly important gadget of 2013 to note.
It was the first 4K-compatible monitor to surface, with
3,840 x 2,160 pixel native resolution. And it costs a mere three and a half
grand in US dollars. Very few of you will end up buying one of these, but it’ll
be a good fact to impress your geeky mates in five years when 4K monitors are
the norm.
Motorola Moto G
There’s nothing technologically impressive about the Moto G
as an abstracted piece of hardware. What makes it truly interesting is that
Motorola has managed to make a phone of this calibre for under £100 (it has
sold for as little as £89.99).
At this price there’s simply nothing that can come close to
this. Look at Samsung’s line-up and you’ll need to spend three times the money
to get something as good. Motorola has set
the new standard for £100 Android
phones. But will it be a one-off? Let’s hope not.
Sony KDL-65X9005A
This is Sony’s 4K TV for 2013. And it’s one that sees the
price of 4K TVs drop to almost imaginable levels. It costs £5,000 (there's a
cheaper 55-inch version as well), and offers class-leading 3D performance,
superb 4K image quality, and is probably the 4K TV we’d buy if we had five
grand in the pocket and only a TV to spend it on.
It’s also one of the only TVs to offer good sound quality,
with ‘proper’ speakers mounted to each side of the screen, rather than having
drivers that are hidden away from sight as much as possible.
Apple iPad Air
The iPad Air is the first iPad to dramatically change the
design of Apple’s 9.7-inch screen tablet. It cuts down the screen surround to
make a tablet that looks better, is much more portable and a good deal lighter.
People often criticise Apple as a company that copies
others, but Apple leads the pack with the iPad Air. It has none of design
gimmickery of the Xperia Tablet Z, and is a tablet that convinced us it’s still
the 10-inch iPad – not the iPad mini – that most people will probably want. To
make a tablet this large and so well-made as light as it is makes it a serious
milestone.
Sony PS4
We could only really put one games console in this round-up,
and it’s going to by Sony’s – by a hair. Its embracing of remote play with the
Vita and promises of a full gaming service next year through Gaikai technology
make it the technology winner this time around.
Of course, the Xbox One has Kinect, and control over your
digibox using the console (come 2014), so if you think we’re mad for choosing
Sony over Microsoft, feel free to call us out in the comments.
LG Flex screen tech
The LG G Flex is due to be the first truly curved-screen phone.
A curvy phone seems like a complete gimmick to us, but there are some merits to
the screen technology behind it.
A flexible phone screen will help a phone suck up impact
when dropped, stopping it – hopefully – from breaking. However, we also need to
get beyond using glass screen layers to make it something that’ll really change
phone use for the butter-fingered everyman.
Sonos Playbar
The Sonos Playbar is the first soundbar from the master of
multi-room Sonos, and one of the most desirable soundbars made yet. It’s the
first Sonos product that lets you hook in sources outside of the Sonos system –
it’d be pretty useless without that function.
What’s so special about it? It’s one of the few soundbars
that is a great replacement for a home hi-fi, thanks to its superb integration
of streaming services like Spotify through the Sonos system. For a speaker bar
this small, bass response is great too.
Panasonic TX-P60ZT65
A swansong for plasma TVs, the Panasonic ZT65 was considered
a ‘reference level’ TV at its launch but Panasonic has since confirmed that it
is to stop all production of plasma televisions in 2014.
It’s one of the few TVs that can actually outperform Pioneer
Kuro plasmas for black level – although the last Kuro TV was made in 2009,
they’re still considered some of the best TVs ever made. And just as they’re
beaten, the best current plasma bows out of plasma TVs for good. Sod’s law, eh?
Bose QuietComfort 20i
You don’t often see startling new tech in headphones, but we
think the Bose Quietcomfort 20 are worth a nod. They are by far the best in-ear
active noise cancelling headphones made to date, offering superb cancellation,
great comfort and pretty good sound quality.
We can’t see anyone else catching up with the Bose QC20 any
time soon. It’s just a pity they cost £260.
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