by Erik M. Dell

Created on: October 30, 2010   Last Updated: May 15, 2011

At any given time there is a plethora of new gadgets on the market and it is always exciting to review a year in technology and 2010 was the best one yet for gadgets.  We saw the release of the iPad and the continuing trend towards tablet computers.  XBox and Playstation joined Wii with motion controlled games.  Smart phones have taken the cellular market by storm.  These new products are fun and exciting but it's the more unexciting product underneath that allowed each of these gadgets to become the "it" product of 2010.

The New Year ushered in widespread use of solid state drives (SSD) which subsequently lowered prices and shrunk sizes of gadgets.  It is important to understand the importance of this single contribution.  SSD has made possible the most amazing gadgets that you will be shopping for this holiday season and next.  For those who don’t know SSDs are similar to flash drives (USB thumb drives) that people seem to have lying all around the house.  The main difference in a SSD and a regular hard drive is the lack of moving pieces which allows for a smaller, quieter, more reliable drive.

SSDs have been around for a while but they were often very expensive and usually not very large.  Today you can visit www.newegg.com or www.tigerdirect.com and purchase a 64GB SSD for around $100 retail.  From iPad to laptops to smartphones, SSDs are changing the technology around us.

Here are the top 5 technology gadgets of 2010 (thanks to SSD):

1)      E-readers – There is a fierce battle raging in the e-reader market with a few companies offering the top products in this category.  Amazon has the Kindle, Barnes and Noble (BN) has the Nook, and Borders has the Kobo.  All four are relatively cheap ~$130.

Kindle – The Kindle is probably the most well-known of the e-readers and has been around the longest of the current generation (e-readers have been around since the early 90s).  Amazon is the largest supplier of books on the planet and the company realizes that it is essential to start selling books electronically.  The affordable Kindle provides the ability to do that and primarily uses e-ink to provide a pleasant reading experience. BN Nook – Became popular upon its release in 2009 and the new 2010 model has three choices.  The Nook color departs from the traditional e-ink e-reader format while the other two still retain the e-ink for

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