This week, Wirecutter announced its inaugural Best New Picks Awards: the 71 best new products we recommended last year. Surprising, delightful, and useful things our journalists couldn’t stop talking about with their own friends and family, that meet all kinds of wants and needs. Or, in my case, introduced me to things that I didn’t even know I wanted and needed. This is my first month here, so I’m about as new to Best New Picks as the rest of you. I caught up with Wirecutter’s editor-in-chief, Ben Frumin, to learn more. We recommended almost 3,000 new picks last year — what makes these the best? Every Wirecutter pick is great. But we wanted to whittle it down to the absolute best of the best. Still, even when we did that, we had more than 100 A-plus products. So we started looking at the mix. Like, even if we had seven amazing new robot vacuums that were first anointed last year, we’re not going to list seven robot vacuums in the 71 Best New Picks. We wanted the breadth of Wirecutter’s coverage to be represented, too. So there were trade-offs in the sense that we tried to have the group be broadly illustrative of Wirecutter’s coverage as a whole. And were there any picks that, just immediately, a bunch of people wanted to feature? I do think there are plenty of things that, ever since we anointed it, have been so popular with our readers. And people on staff have bought them and loved them. We know those are great. But there are also some things in here that might seem kind of random. That’s part of what we’re trying to do, too. Wirecutter is, of course, part of the esteemed New York Times, but we’re still a little bit of a punk rock pirate ship. We want to surprise you with offbeat recommendations. Even if a Wirecutter super fan looked at our slate of winners, there should be all kinds of things in there that they might not have seen before. I mean, I can’t stop thinking about the karaoke machine. Totally. Thom Dunn, one of our senior staff writers, has covered karaoke machines for years. But people might not know that, and might not have considered getting them from us. And that’s true of so many categories. We cover so much that even people who have loved and relied on us for years might only have familiarity with a sliver of our recommendations. I believe there’s one pick that holds an especially dear place in your heart. Oh, the duck. I love the duck. I wrote a piece that we published this week in which I declared that the duck is not only the best of the Best New Picks or my favorite Best New Pick, but actually my favorite Wirecutter pick, ever. I’m a little out on a limb there as Wirecutter’s editor. It’s like naming your favorite child. But the duck deserves it. It’s not like we did comparative testing of every duck-shaped desk lamp in American retail and crowned this one disaffected duck lamp as the best. We fell in love with this particular duck and featured it as a pick in our gifts coverage. And the duck does what so many great gifts do: It’s like saying, “I get you.” I think it demonstrates an understanding, that I describe in the piece, of the mild injustices, senseless drudgery, and cavernous emptiness of so much of modern life. The duck is us, and I think we all see ourselves in the duck. The duck is mystical. Yes, even those of us who don’t own the duck admire the duck from afar and almost see it as a mascot for us here at Wirecutter. And, finally, for people who might be coming to Best New Picks for the first time, what do you hope they take away from this project? I’ll flip it, and say that I would just love to hear from them. We value our readers so much. And I would love to hear about our audience’s experience with any of these Best New Picks. If there are things that were new to Wirecutter from last year that people feel like we left out, we’d love to hear that, too. This is the first awards franchise that Wirecutter has ever done, but it certainly won’t be the last. And it’s been heartening how overwhelmingly positive our audience has responded to Best New Picks. We’re excited to do more. Behold: All the winners of our Best New Picks awards→ We independently review everything we recommend. When you buy through our links, we may earn a commission. Learn more ›
Hidden among our Best New Picks are several truly superb gifts, including a timeless cotton sweater and a triumphant-looking watering can. Thanks for reading. You can reach the Wirecutter Newsletters team at newsletters@wirecutter.com. We can’t always respond, but we do love to hear from you.
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