Aug. 3--Apple and Sony found their way to the top of a number of categories in PC Magazine's 21st annual readers' choice survey, which was released online last week.

Apple won the top spot for tech support and reliability, while Sony made the top-ranked Windows machines.

Sony took top honors for the best LCD, rear-projection and standard televisions, too. Apple's iPod and notebook lines were the best in their respective classes, as was its wireless Internet router.

Nikon delivered the best overall scores among digital camera makers, and Kodak's printers were a surprise top pick.

Apple updates?

According to Appleinsider, Apple resellers were advised Wednesday to order four weeks' worth of the popular Mac notebooks and iPods. An advisement memo from Apple implied that both product lines will see shortages in the next week.

Although such memos aren't out of the ordinary, they do tend to lead to product updates in coming weeks. Appleinsider believes those updates probably will come in mid- to late September.

New Dells

Dell unveiled a new line of PCs -- the Studio Hybrid series. The CPU is about the size of a large book and starts at $499. The spec sheet of the base model is a bit underwhelming but improves considerably at the $699 price point. A fully loaded system is available for a little more than $1,000.

One of the main selling points of the Studio Hybrid series, according to Dell, is its status as a green machine. The CPU is 80 percent smaller than most of Dell's other PCs and uses 70 percent less energy. It also includes 75 percent less printed documentation in the box, which is made of 95 percent recyclable material.

Garmin delay

GPS device-maker Garmin is delaying its much-anticipated nuviphone until the first half of 2009, the company said. The delay is related to carrier-specific design issues.

The touch-screen phone probably will be heavy on GPS functionality and include a camera and a Windows Mobile operating system. The camera feature is particularly notable, as each photo taken will include the time, date and exact latitude, longitude and elevation of the photo.

More video games

Sony's Greatest Hits line of video games now extends to PlayStation 3. Long a staple of PlayStation 2 retail racks, the high-end system will have 10 games priced at $29.99 -- half off the price of newer games.

Contact the writer: bryan.redemske@owh.com or 444-1387

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