BestStuff

Computer mouse giant Logitech beat out a number of major audio brands in this category with its Z-680, a kick-ass, 500-watt PC home theater in a box. Featuring five speakers, a subwoofer, receiver and wireless remote control, this 5.1 channel THX certified surround system comes equipped with both Dolby Digital and DTS encoding to deliver movie-like sound to anything your PC can pump out, be it DVDs, Games, Music or TV. The four satellite speakers feature stands that rotate for either desk or wall mounting. For style, its detachable grill covers create an “audio-tech” look of the aluminum phase plug drivers. $400; www.logitech.com

The best scooter of the season is the eGO, an Italian -style electric scooter designed by a bunch of wonder kids from Rhode Island. eGO zooms 0-20mph in 20-seconds and can travel about 25 miles per six hour charge. Our test rides were big fun. eGO is quiet, comfortable, efficient and handles like a dream. We also liked its belt drive instead of a messy chain. Best of all, it sells for under $1000. www.egovehicles.com.

Sony has taken a different direction from other makers of high-end "prosumer" cameras in developing this new camera. It uses a newly developed (by Sony) 8 megapixel four-color CCD sensor (all others use three-color sensors). Unlike existing sensors which superimpose red, green and blue filters onto the front of the CCD sensor, the new Sony sensor uses red, green, blue and cyan filters to improve color fidelity and expand the color gamut. To produce the best possible images from this new sensor Sony has collaborated with Germany's renowned Carl Zeiss and fitted the camera with a Carl Zeiss T* Vario-Sonnar 7.1 - 51mm zoom lens (equivalent to 28 - 200mm on a 35mm film SLR). This lens has remarkably fast apertures of f/2 - 2.8 which should make low light photography a breeze. Experienced photographers will like the manual zoom ring operation of the lens. Read more

While not the most road-friendly laptop, this super thin, 6.5-pounder with its 15.4-inch screen will certainly make you forget your desktop the minute you see its striking good looking metallic casing and colored front light panels and, of course, give its mobile Pentium M processor with Centrino integrated wireless technology a spin. Read more

The “mother of all displays” is the 24-inch widescreen Samsung LCD SyncMaster 241MP flat panel. There is some debate among serious gamers about the response speed of flat panels for gaming. This is due to the slower on-off cycle of LCD displays in general, as opposed to CRTs. This may be a problem for some panels, but we have never been disappointed with this giant display, where you almost feel you are part of the action yourself. With so much screen “real-estate” available, you easily catch details you might miss on smaller displays. Read more

You can literally replace your home entertainment center with this 17-inch widescreen laptop. Featuring a TV tuner, personal video recorder and Microsoft’s Media Center Edition of Windows XP, you can record and playback your favorite shows/movies, burn DVDs, listen to your music collection and even play the most demanding 3-D graphics video games on this multitalented machine. Read more

Jura-Capresso makes the number one coffee makers on the planet. They’re absolutely fantastic and the Jura-Capresso S9 is their latest super-automatic. It takes whole beans and it converts it into the most delicious coffee you’ve ever tasted outside of a café in Italy. It has a built-in high tech burr grinder to grind and brew the perfect cup of coffee. If you want the best coffee maker on the market the Jura-Capresso S9 is definitely for you. $2199. www.capresso.com

The folks at Netgear make it simple to set up a wireless home network. Its routers for the most part are plug and play. Simply plug your Cable modem or DSL into the router then plug router into your PC. Outfit your laptop or other PCs in the house with Netgear’s PC cards or its cool new Wireless USB Adapter and volia! All your computers are talking to each other; you can share the same Internet connection printers, scanners and more. Best of all, despite all the different versions of 802.11 wireless, Netgear’s products are backwards compatible, meaning if you have an old machine or existing wireless card they will still talk to each other, and you can set up your whole house for under $200. www.netgear.com.

Don’t let its streamlined size fool you. Apple’s smallest portable (12-inch screen, 4.6 lbs, 1.18 inches thick) is packed with all the processing power you’ll need for school or professional applications. Read more

Gateway's got game with this monster PC that will handle anything you throw at it. The Best Stuff crew uses the new Gateway 700XL series for serious game testing. When not busy gaming, it can chew its way through the most demanding jobs (like video editing, music making and other power hungry projects) without missing a beat. Read more