Part of my duty as Technical Editor here is wrangling the annual Best Products of the Year. Basically, any product that has passed through our doors is fair game, but the products must do what they do very well. It can get sticky from year to year and from category to category, but we always make it happen.

Nine of our 16-or-so categories have been chosen (no, I’m not telling you which ones.) In a break from years past, we are running the Best Products of the Year in the January issue this year. So think of it as a second holiday gift guide, if you will–we start with the camcorder buyer’s guide in December, and the Best Products story in January, combined with our first-ever pocket camcorder buyer’s guide (you know, those little cams that look like cell phones? Yeah, those. Generally speaking, the ones with fixed focus and no optical zoom that otherwise wouldn’t qualify to run in the full buyer’s guide.)

Anyway–back to writing copy. But we hope you enjoyed that little preview of what’s coming up. Stick with us in ’10… we think you’ll like what you see. (And if you need to renew, give our friendly customer service reps a buzz at 1-800-284-3226!)