Feature Articles

A Guide to the New HardwareZone.com

By Vijay Anand - 25 Jun 2010

At a Glance

Welcome to the New HardwareZone

HardwareZone.com has come a long way since its inception in 1998 as we steadily grew our member services, editorial coverage, community tools, and branching out into the neighboring countries in the region. 12 years after its launch, HardwareZone.com is still the leading the leading tech portal in the Asia Pacific region serving out what it does best, but now with a totally redesigned site with a fresh outlook, new content sections and an easier navigation scheme.

Of course there are other complimenting features to this new refresh and to ensure all of these are conveyed to our readers, we've prepared this guide to the new HardwareZone.com. Note that what you see today isn't the final state of the site as we're constantly evaluating feedback to better equip the site to users needs. Expect to see more features to be rolled out in the coming months ahead, including a few of the most asked features such as the classic Price Guide function.

Layout at a Glance

While it may seem that content has been just shifted about and dropping the dark blue/purple color scheme for a much brighter outlook (a white base) with ascents of the lime-green color that's associated with our logo, the site overhaul is far more complex than just a new skin and a vibrant new logo. The underlying structure of the site and how content is stored is the biggest structural change that's worlds apart from the old site. It may not be apparent, but the Product Guide is now the umbrella of how all content is stored. As the new site's data structure is totally different from the old site, there has been a lot of manual work to port older content to the new site for historical referencing and maintaining the powerful knowledge base that has been amassed over the years of operation. Here's a pictorial overview with the more notable improvements singled out:-

Back to the site layout in general, gone are the dual navigation bars from the old site. The new HardwareZone.com has a much more straightforward yet comprehensive side navigation bar that is the gateway to the entire site's content. Take note that the left side also contains layout options and membership services. The center now focuses on all the core editorial content from standard reviews to feature articles.  Newly added after the revamp is our editorial blogs where our tech writers share personal findings and opinions from trends to tricks of the trade. The right-hand column now houses the site search, breaking news and two new segments - HWZ TV and a list of latest products launched. The latter  serves to notify the newest tech products launched which are updated in our database with pictures and specs, while the former is our very own video channel  with feature presentations on special events, interviews, how-to videotorials, special product highlights and many more interesting aspects of tech.

Site Layout Viewing Tips

Before we drill down to each of the individual content/service sections, here's a couple of layout preference tips to maximize content reading in one screen:-

  • The new HardwareZone.com is designed for a screen resolution of 1024x768 pixels (up from the old site's 800x600 resolution based design).
    However we understand some of you might want to cram as much readable content on your screen. At the top of the page, we've two layout buttons - 1024 and 100%. Like their name indicates, the former is the default site laid out for a 1024x768 pixels resolution. However, toggling to 100% mode, you get to fill your entire browser's viewable area with our content.
     
  • For those who want to get every bit of viewable space, you can go further by hiding the left-hand navigation bar. A small green tab labeled Hide Nav that's next to the navigation bar toggles collapsing and expanding this main navigation bar. Both the layout options presented here work independently or together.

We've a lot more features and functions covered on how to get most of the new HardwareZone, so read on to find out!

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