HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2017: Editor's Choice - Part 2

Celebrating the very best in tech

Last week, we published the results of our Readers' Choice polls, and Part 1 of our Editor's Choice articles, which focuses on the best in consumer electronics products, like digital cameras, smartphones/tablets, 4K TVs, and headphones. In this third and concluding part, we turn our attention to the best in computing products such as PC components, notebooks, and routers. Also featured in this article are the winners of our Innovation awards category, which is set up to recognize innovative products and cutting-edge technologies that emerged over the past year.

But before that, here's a highlight video and some pictures of the awards ceremony that took place on February 17:

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And to add the fun ambiance of our special occasion, the HardwareZone and HWM editorial and video production teams came up with some rather interesting video entertainment that has fast become the hallmark of our special occasion. This year, we explored what if tech gadgets interacted like people and following that, what if apps were people!

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Enjoyed the fun and acting skills of the editorial team? Time to get back to the real world and check out the winners and award recipients, and Part 2 of our breakdown of Editor's Choice results:-

Best Motherboard

Intel’s X99 chipset is the go-to platform for the most demanding enthusiasts who require a ton of CPU performance. Of course, this is also the platform you’ll need to take advantage of Intel’s crazy new 10-core Core i7-6950X (3.0GHz, 25MB cache), so there’s really no other option at this point in time if you want to go for unrivaled CPU performance.

The Intel X99 platform’s support for 28- and 40-lane Haswell-E and Broadwell-E CPUs also means that three- and four-way multi-GPU setups are truly viable options, and many of our tested boards support multiple high-speed PCIe storage devices in tandem as well.

And that’s exactly what we’re focusing on here – the best performance that money can buy. All of the boards we’ve picked out here are the best that their respective brands have to offer. In addition, we should point out that our review takes place at a time when Intel’s next- generation Z270 mainstream chipset has just debuted, so a review of the latest X99 boards appears to be the most relevant course of action as that platform is still going to be around for some time yet.

For this year's Tech Awards, we've rounded up the flagship boards from various brands to see which one comes out on top.

Nominees:

• ASRock X99 Taichi
• ASUS ROG Rampage V Edtion 10
• Gigabyte X99 Designare-EX
• MSI X99A Godlike Gaming Carbon

And the winner is...

The ASUS ROG Rampage V Edition 10 takes the cake because of its zero-compromises approach to performance. It has the most well-rounded feature set out of all the contenders, and the board design shows an attention to detail that makes it clear that it was designed to make things easier for overclockers and enthusiasts. For instance, the dedicated OC Zone comes with buttons for LN2 mode, retry, safe boot, and slow mode for extreme overclockers, and the PCIe lane and DRAM channel switches help with troubleshooting. Couple that with its premium components, thoughtful inclusions like the integrated I/O shield and 3x3 802.11ac Wi-Fi, and five-zone RGB onboard lighting, and you get a very attractive and high-performance board. This is also the board that pushed out the strongest CPU and overclocking performance (even if it did not manage the highest clock speeds), the final point in cementing its place at the top of the pack.

Here's a small snapshot of the performance results from our shootout:

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Graphics Chip

2016 makes for quite a tricky year to tease out a winner for the best graphics chip. While NVIDIA went all out with its brand new Pascal architecture, which is targeted expressly at the performance market and enthusiasts, AMD went in the reverse direction. The latter instead doubled down on mainstream consumers, intent on wooing them with its Radeon RX 400 series cards, designed to provide the best bang for your buck with decent performance and even more palatable prices.

That said, while the AMD Radeon RX 480 is the flagship Polaris GPU, it is still in no position to compete with the behemoth that is the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080. As a result, we decided to use the performance-per- watt metric to provide a fairer measure of comparison between the two cards and see which came out ahead. After all, more performance-per-watt directly signifies who delivers a more efficient product/architecture.

Nominees:

• AMD Radeon RX 480
• NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080

And the winner is...

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 is without doubt the faster card by a significant margin here, but it came ahead in terms of power efficiency as well, or more specifically, the amount of performance that can be squeezed out of each watt consumed. NVIDIA’s 2016 flagship has a lot going for it, not least its blistering performance – faster than last generation’s ultra-enthusiast Titan X – admirable power consumption figures, and relatively attractive price point (for a card of its caliber that is). That said, the higher performance-per- watt figures versus the AMD Radeon RX 480, a card based on a Polaris architecture tweaked for power efficiency as well, only further cements its place as the best graphics card of 2016.

For the full performance results, you can head to our respective reviews of the Radeon RX 480 and GeForce GTX 1080. Below, we've condensed the results to see how much 3DMark points-per-watt or frames-per-watt you can get out of both cards:-

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Gaming Graphics Card

The NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 is the most powerful graphics card on the planet for consumers in year of 2016. There’s just no disputing that at this point now. Sure, there’s the new Titan X card, but that is a US$1,200 monster that is targeted more at researchers and organizations working in the fields of artificial intelligence and deep learning.

And even though the reference cards have now been repackaged as fancier Founders Edition models, gamers will probably find themselves gravitating toward custom cards from NVIDIA’s board partners. These come with the usual bells and whistles like beefed-up coolers, dazzling (or not) LED lighting effects, and factory overclocks.

For this shootout, we've rounded up the flagship cards (at the time of launch) from ASUS, MSI, and Palit to tease out a winner. (Gigabyte couldn't get stock to send us a card despite several requests.)

Nominees: 

• ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1080 OC
• MSI GeForce GTX 1080 Gaming X 8G
• Palit GeForce GTX 1080 GameRock Premium Edition

And the winner is...

The ASUS ROG Strix GeForce GTX 1080 OC  scores some points for being the highest clocked custom card in our shootout. It’s also one of the highest clocked GeForce GTX 1080 cards on the market today. The ASUS card also comes with value-added features like the two 4-pin FanConnect headers and two HDMI ports (instead of one). These don’t form the core of the user experience, but they do simplify things for VR users, and give system builders more options for configuring their system fans.

At S$1,239, it is even slightly cheaper than the MSI card, which isn’t as fast and has fewer features. Of course, it’s still quite a bit more expensive than Palit’s S$1,088 GameRock Premium Edition card, but it makes up for it in terms of better looks (in our eyes at any rate), more comprehensive lighting controls, and a more palatable dual-slot design.

Here's a small snapshot of the full performance results from our shootout:

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Portable External Drive

As a result of falling SSD prices, portable external SSDs have also become more affordable. In the year of 2016, we have seen more portable external SSDs entering the market, offering demanding users with deep pockets to have an external storage solution that is almost as fast as their internal SSDs.

To make the cut for this category, the portable external SSD must be offered in capacities of 500GB or 512GB and must support USB 3.0 or above.

Nominees:

• ADATA SD700
• Samsung T3

And the winner is...

The ADATA SD700 might not have the security features of its rival, but it is super rugged. It passes IP68 specifications for dust and water resistance, meaning it is dust tight and can stay submerged in up to 1.5 meters of water for up to an hour. It also passes military-grade MIL-STD-810G-516.6 shockproof requirements. These features are handy in a portable external SSD. Beyond its durability, it is also a speedy drive, easily besting its rival overall in the speed stakes. For its all-rounded capabilities, we feel that it is most deserving of best external portable SSD of the year.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Solid State Drive 

2016 is possibly the year where we can say that SSDs have truly gone mainstream. Once, they used to be the playthings of the rich and power-crazed, but now, thanks to falling SSD prices, no system manufacturer would want to be caught offering a product without some form of flash storage in them.

But if you want the absolute best in flash storage, you need to have a PCIe-based SSD. And 2016 was the year SSD manufacturers got serious about PCIe-based SSDs. This year saw all the big names jump on the PCIe SSD bandwagon, offering products supporting the fast PCIe 3.0 x4 interface and the new NVMe protocol. As a result, these new SSDs are blazing fast and are many times quicker than your standard SATA-based SSDs.

To make the cut, the SSD must support the PCIe 3.0 x4 interface, NVMe protocol, and must be released in 2016.

Nominees:

• ADATA XPG SX8000
• Plextor M8Pe
• OCZ RD400
• Samsung SSD 960 Pro

And the winner is...

For the past couple of years, Samsung has offered drives with very high performance and cost ratio and the new SSD 960 Pro continues this tradition. While it may be one of the priciest PCIe-based SSDs, its performance is nearly unbeatable.

Much of this has to do with Samsung’s new Polaris controller, a penta-core beast which allows the SSD 960 Pro to hit speeds that we have never seen before in a consumer PCIe-based SSD. The fact that Samsung develops and manufactures its own NAND chips and controller firmware also helps.

Performance aside, the SSD 960 Pro also benefits from Samsung’s Magician SSD management utility, very high endurance ratings, support for hardware encryption, and it even comes with a free data migration utility. 

*Note: Prices and ratings listed are accurate at the time of evaluation.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Gaming Monitor

For most if not all PC gamers, the most important component combination is the graphics card and the gaming monitor that we choose to play our games on. One of the great things about gaming monitors is that, unlike graphics cards where their life span is usually a few years, a good display can keep you going for the better part of a decade. With such a long lifespan, it pays to get something you’ll be happy with for years to come.

As with all PC technologies, gaming monitors have evolved tremendously over the past couple of years. Where TN panels used to be the preferred choice over IPS panels by gamers due to its higher response rate and refresh times, the latter has gotten better in recent years. IPS panels now not only give better color production and superior viewing angles than TN’s, but have also become speedier with its response rates and refresh times.

This this year's Tech Awards, all our gaming monitor finalists, have similar specifications. They are all 27 inches in size, have a response time of 4ms or less, at least a 144Hz refresh rate, have IPS panels (except for one with a TN panel) and support 2,560 x 1,440-pixel resolution. The monitors were then judged on performance, features, and value to determine the winner.

Nominees:

• Acer Predator XB271HU
• AOC AGON 271QG
• ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q
• BenQ Zowie XL2735
• ViewSonic XG2703-GS

And the winner is...

The ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q gets the edge over its competitors thanks to a combination of color superiority, build quality and an easy-to-use menu system. Thanks to that IPS screen, colors look great even from off-angles. The base is sturdy (and allows for lots of tilting, pivoting, and height adjustments) and the bezel is fairly thin, which is nice for a 27-inch monitor that’s already taking up a good deal of space.

The biggest drawback to such a fine monitor, of course, is the price. It is not the most expensive monitor in our shootout, but S$1,369 is still a hefty investment nonetheless. But having said that, we consider a monitor a long-term investment. We recommend buying a great monitor that will still be going strong half a decade from now. So while there are other notable gaming monitors similar to ASUS’ offering, it is our opinion that the ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q is the best gaming monitor you can buy right now.

*Note: Prices and ratings listed are accurate at the time of individual product evaluation.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Portable Gaming Notebook

2016 was an exciting time for gaming notebooks. NVIDIA’s new Pascal GPUs proved to be quite a game changer, as mobile graphics chips were now performing closer than ever to their desktop counterparts. In fact, one could argue that there is no longer any such thing as a mobile GPU from NVIDIA, as the company has dispensed with the -M suffix to signify that its mobile and desktop GPUs are now one and the same.

Sure, there are certain tweaks to make them better suited for notebooks, but NVIDIA is otherwise claiming performance within 10 per cent of desktop graphics cards. This performance parity means that you’re no longer trading away a ton of performance when you opt for a gaming notebook instead of desktop.

This puts 15-inch gaming notebooks in an especially attractive position, and they are poised to offer an attractive combination of graphics firepower and decent portability. For this year’s awards, we rounded up 15-inch gaming notebooks from the various brands to see which best satisfied the above expectations.

Nominees:

• Acer Predator 15
• Aftershock S-15 (2016)
• Alienware 15
• Aorus X5 v6
• ASUS ROG Strix GL502VM
• Gigabyte P35X v6
• MSI GS63VR 6RF Stealth Pro

And the winner is...

Aorus is Gigabyte’s premium gaming brand, and the X5 v6 is quite clearly designed to appeal to the crowd for whom money is no object. At S$3,799, it is the most expensive laptop of the eight reviewed, but it justifies its price with a combination of powerful hardware – the best of the lot – and a slim and light chassis. It is the only notebook to feature an overclockable Intel Core i7-6820HK processor, and our review unit came overclocked out of the box at 4.0GHz. In addition, it features an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1070 GPU and 16GB of RAM, and manages to cram all that in a chassis that is just 22.9mm thick and weighing 2.5kg.

Some of the other notebooks, like the Acer Predator 15 and Alienware 15 boast similar specifications but are an entire kilogram heavier, which only makes what Aorus has done even more impressive. The X5 v6 checks all the right boxes for performance and portability, but it extends its lead with a higher resolution 2,880 x 1,620-pixel IPS G-Sync display and per-key RGB backlighting.

Here's a quick snapshot of its performance from our shootout:

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best 2-in-1 Notebook

2-in-1 notebooks, or hybrid notebooks as they are sometimes called, are getting increasingly popular. And it’s not hard to see why: they offer the best of both worlds, equal parts notebook and tablet. And thanks to advances in technology, today’s 2-in-1 notebooks are more capable and refined than ever. 

To make the cut for this year’s awards, the notebook must be of a 2-in-1 design - either convertible or detachable - and must be powered by a full Intel Core processor (no ultra low voltage variants). It must also have been released in 2016.

Nominees:

• Acer Switch Alpha 12
• ASUS Transformer 3 Pro
• Dell Inspiron 13 5000 2-in-1
• HP Spectre x360
• Lenovo Yoga 910

And the winner is...

The HP Spectre x360 is a refined and well-designed convertible notebook that has very few weaknesses. It is one of the first notebooks to embrace Intel’s new Kaby Lake processors and that has given it a slight edge in terms of performance in comparison to most of its rivals. It is also incredibly slim and light, and considerably more compact than its rivals, which makes it the most portable notebook of the lot. Last, but not least, it also has good connectivity options in the form of a standard USB Type-A port and two additional USB Type-C Thunderbolt 3 ports. Our only complaint is that it should have a higher resolution display.

*Note: Prices and ratings listed are accurate at the time of individual product evaluation.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Business Projector

Getting a bright projector is important if you’re buying it as a presentation tool. So for this business projector category, we requested for projectors with a maximum brightness of 3,500 lumens. We also narrowed down to those designed for conference room and classroom use, and which are priced no more than S$1,400. While they can either be using 3LCD or DLP tech, they all must have at least a WXGA native resolution (that is, 1,280 x 800 pixels).

Nominees:

• Casio XJ-V110W
• NEC MC331W
• Sony VPL-DW240

And the winner is...

A 3,300 lm LCD projector with 1.2x zoom lens, the NEC MC331W excels with packing many features for its S$979 price tag, including 2 x D-Sub inputs (1 can double for output) and 2 x HDMI. It has a 16W speaker, loudest of the bunch, and USB ports for USB image viewer and PC control. It’s also the only one with built-in Ethernet (wireless requires a dongle).

Image quality-wise, it’s slightly behind the Sony VPL-DW240, but that's only in movies. Its data-image quality is on a par with Sony's projector. And because it uses LCD tech, it doesn’t suffer from rainbow effects like the Casio XJ-V110W. Lamp life is up to 10,000 hours using Eco mode, but under normal use, it’s about 4,000 to 6,000 hours.

To sum up, the NEC MC331W is an all-rounded data projector that will play nice in most mid-size meeting room and classroom settings. The high light output makes it suitable for daytime use, its data-image quality is good, and in typical NEC fashion, it more often not will pack more features than similarly-priced models from other brands.

(Additional note: If longevity is all you care about, the Casio XJ-V110W will appeal to you, as its hybrid LED/laser light source has a 20,000-hour lifespan. However, it's a tad short on other features: it has no USB Host function, no built-in speaker, and no wired or wireless networking support.)

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best AIO Color Inkjet Printer

While laser printers still lead the way in terms of print speed and throughput, today’s inkjets are no slouches either. Volume of print notwithstanding, nothing quite beats an inkjet when it comes to printing photos and graphics. And when you add more functions like scanning, copying and faxing, an all-in-one (AIO) inkjet printer can be a very useful addition to home and small businesses. We put two such inkjet multi-taskers to the test, basing them on specific criteria: besides print, copy, and scan, they must also do fax, and cost no more than S$650.

Nominees:

• Canon Maxify MB5470
• HP OfficeJet Pro 8730

And the winner is…

A modest upgrade from last year’s MB5370, the Canon Maxify MB5470 has ISO print speeds of 24 ipm for mono and 15.5 ipm for color. The HP OfficeJet Pro 8730 prints at 24 ppm for mono too, but faster for color at 20 ppm. Both have similar mono copy speed (22 cpm) but HP is faster in color copy (16 vs. 11.5 cpm). Print quality between both is comparable.

Feature-wise, both printes have built-in wired and wireless networking (including Wi-Fi Direct), and support mobile printing via AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria; and each company’s has its own apps. Both have a USB port for direct print to/scan from USB flash memory and a 50-sheet duplex ADF for 1-pass scanning, too.

That being said, HP's model also supports NFC, has a bigger touch control panel (4.3 vs. 3.5 inches), and works better with enterprise management and security solutions like HP's Web Jetadmin and JetAdvantage On Demand solutions. In a nutshell, both are excellent printers, so it's a narrow win for HP at the end of the day.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best SOHO Color Laser/LED MFP

For business users who care more about document print quality and print speed and don't give two hoots to other features, a laser or LED printer is still the way to go. In fact, in many cases, the print quality and print speed from an entry-level laser printer are still better than those of a high-end inkjet printer. For this category, we took it upon us to suss out the best sub-S$1K laser or LED multi-function printer for small office or home office use.

Nominees:

• Canon Imageclass MF729Cx
• Fuji Xerox DocuPrint CM315 z
• HP Color LaserJet Pro MFP M477fdw
• Oki MC363dn

And the winner is…

At 28ppm (both color and mono), the Fuji Xerox DocuPrint CM315 z prints faster than the Canon MF729Cx and about as fast as the Oki MC363dn. Its default print resolution of 600dpi yields sharp text and smooth graphics, but it can up the quality game further by simulating a 1,200 x 2,400 dpi output.

The CM315 z also has a 4.3-inch touchscreen, direct USB scan, duplex ADF for 1-pass scanning, and 250-sheet standard tray. If you print a lot, you can add another 550-sheet tray. There's also support for gigabit Ethernet and wireless networking, and mobile printing via AirPrint, Google Cloud Print, Mopria, and NFC.

All in all, while the CM315 z is one of the more expensive of the bunch, with its fast print speeds, very good print quality, and no lacking of essential features, we think it's money well spent.

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Best Wireless Router

For readers who demand the very best in wireless connectivity, AC5300-class routers are what you want because they offer both speed and bandwidth. For speed, these routers offer a maximum data transfer rate of up to 2,167Mbps. And for bandwidth, these routers broadcast three separate networks and also provided a total data transfer rate of up to 5,334Mbps. This makes them ideal for performance-hungry users and also users with many connected devices.

To make the cut for this year’s awards, the nominee must be a tri-band router that supports AC5300 speeds. It must also have been released in 2016.

Nominees:

• D-Link DIR-895L AC5300 Ultra Wi-Fi router
• Linksys EA9500 Max-Stream AC5400 MU-MIMO Gigabit router
• TP-Link Archer C5400 AC5400 Wireless Tri-Band MU-MIMO Gigabit router

And the winner is...

The Linksys EA9500 is the winner because of its unbeatable combination of performance and features. On the performance front, it recorded very respectable and consistent numbers across all tested ranges. And on the features front, the EA9500 router benefits from having Linksys’ excellent Smart Wi-Fi software stack, which is easy to use and has all the bells and whistles one would expect from a flagship router from one of the biggest brands in home networking. It also has a whopping eight Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports! The only thing that kept us from giving it a higher rating is its rather high price tag. Here's a snapshot of its performance from our shootout:-

For more details on how we selected our winners, check out the full reviews and articles listed at the References section at the end.

Innovation Awards

Four Innovation awards were also given out in this year's Editor's Choice segment, with the aim of recognizing innovative products and cutting-edge technologies that have emerged during the eligibility period. The winners are Lenovo, LG, Sony, and Xiaomi.

1.) Lenovo Moto Z

The Moto Z isn't solely defined by the smartphone because of the Moto Mods attachments that make up a huge chunk of its user experience. There's also a decent selection of modules and all of them play nicely with the Moto Z device. It's the best modular design smartphone we have seen so far, with a full hot-swappable experience - if you're willing to pay the price.

Additional read: Lenovo Moto Z review: The new standard for modular smartphones

2.) LG Gram 15

The LG Gram 15 is worthy of our Innovation Award because of its impressive design and incredible portability. Even though it is a 15-inch notebook with Full-HD display and all the ports you would need, it weighs a mere 980g and at its chunkiest point, it is just 16.8mm thick. These are numbers that would put some 13-inch notebooks to shame.

Additional read: LG Gram 15 review: An unbelievably light 15-inch notebook

3.) Sony Backlight Master Drive

In early 2016, Sony showed off a Backlight Master Drive-enabled TV capable of 4,000 nits peak brightness. While that particular prototype isn't ready for market yet, we've a taste of what's to come in the Bravia Z9D. Hitting 1,500 nits without breaking a sweat, the Z9D is arguably the best TV you can get to watch HDR. As BMD improves, it's only a matter of time we can have a 4,000-nit TV in our living room.

Additional read: Sony's Bravia Z9D with Backlight Master Drive is quite possibly the brightest TV you can buy in 2016

4.) Xiaomi Mi Mix

The Xiaomi Mi Mix is the same size as an iPhone 7 Plus, but its edge-to-edge design lets it pack in a massive 6.4-inch display for an incredible 91.3% screen-to-body ratio. To achieve this, Xiaomi has gone to great lengths. For one, it has replaced the traditional earpiece with a piezoelectric ceramic sound driver in a cantilever beam structure inside the phone, and that basically generates / passes the sound through the display and into your ear. Secondly, under the cover glass there’s an ultrasonic wave sensor for measuring distance, which means the space-taking IR proximity sensor can now be gotten rid of as well. Heck, to keep the bezels thin, Xiaomi has even cut the panel with rounded corners. And did we mention the Mi Mix has a ceramic chassis? Almost everything is ceramic - the back cover, the frame, even the power button and volume rocker.

Additional read: Hands-on with the Mi MIX, Xiaomi's all-screen, all-ceramic flagship phone

References

For a full list of content related to the HWM and HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2017 event, you can refer to the following links:

• Tech Awards 2017: Readers' Choice Results
• Tech Awards 2017: Editor's Choice Results - Part 1
• Tech Awards 2017: Editor's Choice Results - Part 2 - this article
• Full list of winners: HWM+HardwareZone Tech Awards 2017 microsite

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