The Best Products of 2017

These 100 gems represent the top 4 percent of the thousands of tech products and services we've tested in the PC Labs this year. If you want to know what to buy this holiday season, here's your list. 

When you test as many products as the PCMag analysts do, it's not surprising that they all start to look alike. Every box seems to have the same features, every game the same mechanics, every technology is simply keeping up with the digital Joneses.

Then, once in a while, something truly amazing stands out. Those are the products we've gathered here, the top 100 of close to 2,500 tested by our staff in 2017. That's only 4 percent of the reviews published at PCMag.com this year.

The trends are obvious. Desktop PCs, once the lifeblood of our coverage, aren't as plentiful nor, to be honest, as interesting as they used to be. Laptops are the top PCs, ubiquitous mobile devices keep us connected everywhere (whether we like it or not), and the real trend is in audio. Not just that speakers are more versatile and sound better than ever—they're smarter too, with voice control at the forefront of our future digital world. This goes hand-in-hand with the explosive growth of the connected home and security categories with scores new of devices controlled by our phones, as well as our voices, with those smart speakers.

The following 100 products in 16 categories have all been tested and rated between November 1, 2016 and today. The vast majority of them—94 to be exact—have earned our coveted Editors' Choice award. And eight of them earn a perfect 5-star rating, but the vast majority are merely excellent with scores of 4 or 4.5. Consider this list your ultimate holiday gift giving guide.