12 Hottest Gadgets for 2010 on YugaTech

The year 2010 is among the most exciting year in the world of gadgets. Here on YugaTech, we try our best to acquire as many hot gadgets and cover as many stories as we can to share with you. Here’s our annual round-up of the 12 Hottest Gadgets for 2010 on YugaTech.

January 2010: Google Nexus One. Google’s second attempt at branding an Android smartphone resulted into a collaboration with HTC. The Google Nexus One generated huge buzz both online and offline. Running a 1GHz SnapDragon processor and the latest Android OS made it a much-desired phone for gadget lovers. It even almost eclipsed RIM’s flagship phone, the BlackBerry Bold 9700.

February 2010: Asus EeePC 1201T. Even after the netbook craze has slowly waned, Asus never lost touch by pushing the borders and offering regular-sized notebooks at netbook prices. The AMD-powered EeePC 1201T combined both extra processing power, better display resolution at an affordable price made it a hit among those who are upgrading their netbooks. I’m surprised as well but our stats do not lie (over 25,000 pageviews on the review alone).

March 2010: Samsung Galaxy Spica i5700. The Samsung Spica is one of the first affordable and capable Android handsets that landed in the country during the first half of the calendar year (arrived late March, became official in April with Globe and our review came out in May). Retailing for under Php15k, it was first locked to Globe’s network and took a month or two before it became readily available to everyone.

April 2010: Sony-Ericsson Xperia X10. With Sony-Ericsson’s reputation with creating solid and beautiful handsets, the Xperia X10 drew a lot of attention especially since it came with an Android OS. However, an outdated OS version and steep retail price prevented it from becoming a top choice among Android smartphone buyers.

May 2010: Apple iPad. Apple’s biggest news in 2010 is the iPad. It broke record sales and ignited a flurry of new tablets in all form and sizes — a feat it duplicated after the success with the iPhone. What Asus did with the netbook market in 2007, Apple did with the tablet market in 2010.

June 2010: HTC Desire. HTC continued to manufacture great Android handsets (after the Hero and Legend) and after the success of the Nexus One, HTC’s reputation solidified. The HTC Desire is the half-brother of the Nexus One and became available to markets not supported by Google’s Online Store.

July 2010: Samsung Galaxy S i9000. After its initial success with the Galaxy Spica, Samsung came out with a bang with the Galaxy S i9000. Sporting a powerful ARM Cortex A8 1.0GHz processor and large 4-inch Super AMOLED display, the Galaxy S easily became the handset-to-own that month. The demand was so high, there was a sudden short of supply despite it being locked with Globe for a least two months.

August 2010: Nokia C3. Nokia is still king when it comes to affordable and reliable feature-phones and the Nokia C3 is a testament to that. A full qwerty phone at under Php6.5k, the C3 followed the success of the Nokia E63. Our coverage of the C3 is the 2nd most read gadget review of the year at over 35,000 pageviews (following the BB Bold 9700 at 39k).

September 2010: Apple iPhone 4. Still touted as the smartphone to beat in 2010, the iPhone 4 remains the most-wanted handset of the year. Thousands lined up during the September launch with Globe Telecom. It was so in-demand, it took the crown of the most-overpriced handset in the grey market with factory-unlocked units selling as high as Php92,000 in GreenHills.

October 2010: Apple MackBook Air 11.6″. It’s not a netbook but it’s thinner, lighter and more powerful than 99% of the netbooks in the market. The 11-inch Macbook Air is also the most affordable in the entire Mac line, selling at the same retail price as the entry-level Macbook.

November 2010: Archos 101 Android Tablet. Archos made noise by offering very affordable Android tablets with reasonable specs. With form factors ranging from 2.8″ to 10.1″, the units are powered by 1.GHz Snapdragon processors and the Android Eclair (with Froyo update via OTA), Archos positioned its products as portable media players rather than as oversized smartphones (thus the absence of 3G modules). If only they can ship in enough supply to match the growing demand.

December 2010: HTC Desire HD. The successor to the Desire, the HTC Desire HD is a bigger, badder Android smartphone at 4.3″. The limited supply (only 50 units were shipped this December) also made it very hard to come by.

Special mention goes to the BlackBerry Bold 9700, HTC Wildfire, Huawei E5, Samsung Monte, Nokia X3-02, and LG’LH70 LED TV. The items listed above are units we’ve actually used and reviewed here on YugaTech. I’m sure there are several others that might have made the list (Kindle 3, Galaxy Tab, N8, N900) but we can’t cover or review them all.