E-Gear Editor's Choice Top 40 Awards

December 2008

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Despite the recession, fluctuating oil prices, Olympics, presidential election and the Phillies winning the World Series, the consumer electronics market actually had time to make some real progress and launch some truly exciting stuff. 2008 saw the end of a video format war, the beginning of real video streaming services, the launch of a dozen new smart phones, and just about a store’s worth of other gear we couldn’t wait to get our hands on.

As always, we sort through the products we reviewed in the magazine and on the Web site to come up with the 40 things we didn’t break ... I mean the 40 things we most loved. This list includes a lot of firsts: The first Blu-ray/Netflix combination; the first TV with integrated sound bar, the first high definition video streaming product, the first iPod TV, the first digital picture frame/printer ... a lot of combo products on this list. I guess that just shows how much we appreciate companies that help us make things simple while decluttering our homes.

This year’s product of the year does that as well. The Epson Ensemble HD home theater system is about as simple a solution you can get in serious, front projection theater. The idea behind it was genius—design a professionally-installed home theater, complete with 100-inch screen, 1080p projector, 5.1 speakers and control center, make all parts of the system completely in-sync with the others, and make it as unobtrusive to the home as possible while allowing it to be set up in just a few hours. Also, it had to look and sound great. Epson did that, opening the door of big screen home entertainment to a much larger audience.

To view a slideshow of our 40 favorite products this year, click here.