2010 Macworld Editors' Choice Awards: Hardware

This small, fun, and powerful camera from Sony is a standout in a burgeoning class of interchangeable-lens cameras. Straddling the line between a point-and-shoot a DSLR, the Alpha NEX-5 has a 14.2-megapixel CMOS sensor, HD video recording, a 25-point auto focus system, and a great 7 fps burst mode. Even though the body of the camera is small, it has a solid grip and an adjustable 3-inch LCD screen. Beyond being powerful, petite, and smartly designed, what really makes the NEX-5 so impressive is its excellent image quality. It captures sharp, colorful, well-exposed images and performs well even in low light. ($700)

If you’re looking for a pure e-reader, it’s hard to beat the third generation Amazon Kindle. The Kindle now has a 6-inch E-Ink Pearl display, one of whose benefits is 50 percent better contrast. Plus you can read it clearly even in bright light. It has almost double the battery life of the previous generation of Kindle, is faster when turning pages than before, and its redesigned case, buttons, and keys make it even more enjoyable to use than in the past. You can choose between a Wi-Fi/3G version and a Wi-Fi-only version. (Wi-Fi only, $139; Wi-Fi and 3G, $189)

Despite the flock of cases that appeared in the wake of the iPad’s release back in April, the handmade Dodocase has managed to alight on our list of best products for the year. Created and constructed by a team of bookbinders in San Francisco, the Dodocase combines old-world charm and modern technology without ever feeling gimmicky or cheap. The case, which mimics the outer appearance of a hardcover moleskine notebook, holds the iPad in place with a simple bamboo frame and a set of small foam cushions, adding a mere 8 ounces to the total weight. Of the many, many, many cases we’ve seen this year, it stands out far and away as our favorite. ($60)

Anyone who calls the iPad “a big iPod touch” is missing the point. The iPad could be called the first truly usable tablet device. It’s a great way to read books, magazines, comic books, and RSS feeds; solve crossword puzzles; watch TV shows and movies from the iTunes Store or using a variety of other apps; surf the Web with a full browser (sans Flash, yes); take notes and even write longer-form items (with or without an add-on keyboard); and a hundred other things. Businesses are using them to display wine lists, show off sketches to clients, and present balance sheets to board members. Apple and the huge community of developers will continue to make the iPad better and able to do things we haven’t even thought of yet. (Wi-Fi–only: 16GB, $499; 32GB, $599; 64GB, $699. Wi-Fi and 3G: 16GB, $629; 32GB, $729; 64GB, $829)

If you judge an iPod touch by how close its feature-set comes to that of the latest iPhone, the fourth-generation (4G) iPod touch has to meet with your approval. Like the iPhone 4, the 4G iPod touch has front- and rear-facing cameras, a retina display, built-in microphone, FaceTime video-calling support, and iMovie for iPhone compatibility. And, of course, there are its existing features that resonate with those who can’t have or don’t need an iPhone—the App Store, iTunes Store, iBookstore, and the many helpful apps bundled with the device. (8GB, $229; 32GB, $299; 64GB, $399)

Ever since the discontinuation of the 12-inch PowerBook years ago, Mac users have been yearning for an ultraportable laptop. With the new 11-inch MacBook Air the prayers of those tired of lugging around a standard-sized laptop were answered. It has a full sized keyboard, a high-resolution display, and well over 3 hours of battery life. The 1.4GHz Core 2 Duo processor in the 11-inch Air isn’t the latest and greatest Intel has to offer, but it’s powerful enough for general-purpose tasks. In a year where the iPad got all the attention (and rightfully so), the 11-inch MacBook Air proved that, without a doubt, Apple is still dedicated to the Mac. ($999 and $1199)

NEC’s latest professional display, the MultiSync PA271W, is a serious tool for color pros that demand superior performance and require granular adjustment capabilities. The PA271W features a matte screen, height adjustment, tilt, rotation and even pivots into portrait orientation. The PA271W has two DVI-D connectors as well as a standard DisplayPort connection. The display can show up to billions of colors, and NEC includes some nifty new technologies to that help its CCFL backlighting get up to a stable operating state in seconds rather than minutes and to maintain consistent backlight performance over time. ($1399)

Bowers & Wilkins’s P5 redefines portable headphones by offering full-size-headphone sound quality and comfort in a package that easily fits in your bag, throwing in outstanding passive noise isolation and beautiful design for kicks. The P5’s construction is superb, and clever features such as swappable, no strain cables and magnetically attached, replaceable earpads add long-term value. Tipping the Eddy scales is the Apple-style, three-button inline remote/microphone module that works with iPhones, the iPad, and recent iPods, iMacs, and MacBooks to let you chat and control media playback. ($300)

The Pogoplug Pro from Cloud Engines is an alternative to online storage and sharing services such as MobileMe’s iDisk or Dropbox that lets you easily share the contents of attached USB storage devices (hard drives and USB key drives) over the Internet. This means that the amount of storage you can share is limited only by the size of the drives attached to the Pogoplug. Sharing the contents of those drives is as easy as creating an account on pogoplug.com, choosing folders to share, and sending invitations to those who you’d like to share those folders with. If you have a lot to share, Pogoplug is a simple and affordable way to do it. ($99)

A deceptively simple looking camera, the PowerShot S95 from Canon is a quality point-and-shoot with full advanced controls. The S95 is a slightly upgraded version of Canon’s popular S90 camera; the S95 keeps all the good parts of the S90, including impressive image quality and full manual settings. What it adds a few key features that were missing from the original: 728p HD video capabilities, improved image stabilization, and an HDR mode. Even without these improvements, the S90 was the best advanced point-and-shoot in its class—the S95 is all that and a little more. This is the camera that pro photographers will have on-hand as an alternative to their large DSLR rigs. ($400)