The A590 IS scored significantly higher in our image-quality assessments than point-and-shoots that have higher megapixel counts and cost more than twice as much. In particular, our panel of judges noted superior colors and flash exposures in our subjective tests.

Bottom Line: For a beginner's camera, the Canon PowerShot A590 IS has excellent image quality and superb stabilization.

External Hard Drive

As hard-drive prices drop and as people's collections of digital stuff balloon, external hard drives--ideal for storage and backup--have become a staple of every gear kit. The direct-attached SimpleTech Duo Pro Drive rose to first place on our Top 10 External Hard Drives chart for various reasons, including the device's excellent performance, its generous capacity, and its thoughtful design.

Sturdily built yet attractive, the Duo Pro Drive features what the company calls a "smart" fan, which adjusts its speed based on how much heat it senses inside.

The unit comes in three sizes (we tested the 1TB model, but you can get up to 2TB) and connects to your PC via USB 2.0 and External SATA-300. The drives are mounted in two internal bays; regrettably, the bays are not replaceable by the user, so you can't easily upgrade the drives at a later time. By default the drives come striped together in a RAID 0 configuration for maximum performance, but you can easily switch to RAID 1 for mirroring.

Most important, though, this model is blazingly fast. It sprinted past the other contenders to take top performance honors.

Bottom Line: Terrific design, fast performance, and versatile backup software make the SimpleTech Duo Pro drive a strong choice.

Monitor

Monitor shopping can present you with Goldilocks' bed conundrum: too small, too big, or just right. The 22-inch category feels "just right" to us: At this size, a monitor provides plenty of viewing flexibility--for crunching spreadsheets, editing photos, or watching movies--but at the same time it won't overwhelm your desk.

Our favorite display in this category is the $350 Hewlett-Packard w2207h. The w2207h stands out for several reasons, but we especially like its thin (1-inch), contoured, glossy black bezel, which doubles as a clip-on spot where you can easily attach optional accessories to the monitor's frame.

The w2207h has a native resolution of 1680 by 1050 pixels, and it did well in our tests overall, producing attractive-looking images and sharp text. The unit's base provides tilt, pivot, swivel, and height adjustments; the monitor also has easily navigable menus, two side-mounted USB ports, HDMI, and VGA inputs.