Whenever I criticize a product, I gird myself for letters that rant, "Admit it: You just don't like anything!" Well, close: I confess I don't like everything.

But I do appreciate lots of products and services--including ones I buy with my very own dollars. And though my verdicts may not be as lofty as our World Class honors, they're definitely a lot more personal. Call them the Steve Class awards.

Most indispensable product: Come to think of it, I didn't pay a cent for the best of the bunch: Google, the search engine that sneakily becomes an essential part of your life. After loading like lightning, Google finds information that even a particular site's own engine may not reveal--such as a rebate coupon it recently unearthed for me.

Google is so darned self-effacing that you wish it would toot its own horn more; I often miss a new function, like the ability to search .pdf files, until someone tells me about it. Take it from this erstwhile AltaVista addict: Google is almost always the engine of choice.

Most enjoyable hardware: The most fun I've had from hardware in eons has come from Sony's $1300 DCR-PC5 DV camcorder. Weighing in at about a pound, this unit has almost every imaginable feature, including an LCD touch screen that offers one particularly slick user interface element: With its spot-metering mode, you choose the area for proper exposure simply by touching it on the screen.

Sure, the unit's battery life, viewfinder brightness, still-photo resolution, and microphone position could all be better, but this little giant points the way to a digital-video future. A successor I haven't tried, the DCR-PC9, adds even more features and promises extended battery life.

Best-designed software: Online editing on a home PC is the other great thing about digital video. Alas, nothing I've tried thus far for Windows matches Apple's Mac-only IMovie. Editing is never a snap, which is why it's a high-priced specialty in Hollywood, but IMovie is easier to use than any competing program I've seen. Apple brings a similarly simple interface to its IDVD software for burning videos to recordable DVD media, though for that you need Apple's most expensive machine.

Most addictive service: Broadband connectivity now has me hooked, even though my AT&T@Home cable-modem service remains less than perfectly dependable. It's just a shame that so many sites are inherently slow and that installing and maintaining broadband connections can be so maddening.

Most promising simple technology: Sony's Pen Tablet desktop PC lets you work by writing, drawing, or pointing directly on the screen with a pressure-sensitive stylus. There's something downright magical about not having to translate hand motion in one place to cursor motion in another. I haven't bought one, but the concept will be a foundation of machines based on Microsoft's forthcoming Tablet PC platform.

Most promising overly complex technology: The 3Com Home Wireless Gateway I recently installed in my house delivers much of the speed of my broadband connection just about anywhere under the roof via the 802.11b Wi-Fi standard. Installing it was a nightmare, though, thanks largely to inadequate documentation from 3Com and my broadband provider--not to mention Microsoft's mediocre Windows docs. Somebody will eventually get this right; for now it's a geeks-only process.

Best lower-tech ideas: Several simpler items deserve prizes of their own. Priced at about $100, the Stowaway folding keyboard can make just about any PDA more useful; the only reason I haven't bought one is that I'm still not PDA-enabled. Another winner: Targus's retractable phone and network cables, which eliminate snaking wires in the briefcase.

Where will the next prize crop of Steve Class winners come from? Right now, I'm excited about rewritable DVD drives, cell phones with built-in PDAs, tiny digital projectors, and progressive-scan DVD players that can deliver filmlike images to advanced displays.

But as always, the big winners will be the surprising products that confound our expectations because their inventors figure out what we really want before we do.

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