Best of Innovations: Tech Awards 2024 Editor’s Choice
Celebrating the most innovative and ground-breaking gadgets and technologies in our qualification timeline.
The Tech Awards Editor's Choice: Innovation Awards are bestowed on products, technologies and services that are deemed to be ground-breaking and capable of drastically reshaping their respective product categories.
To make the cut, the product/tech/ service must have been announced or made available during our Tech Awards qualification period (Q2 2023 to Q2 2024) and must be in at least a working prototype form, where we can see clear merit in its implementation. It cannot be a mere concept.
Other segments include the Best devices for the Home, Best of Mobile Gadgets, Best of Gaming. Not to forget, our Readers’ Choice results for the Best Tech Brands.
ASUS Zenbook Duo UX8406 - Dual Screen Laptops Perfected
Notebooks with dual displays are not new. In fact, ASUS has been making them since 2019. The Zenbook Duo UX8406 is the company’s fourth dual-display ultraportable notebook and it’s easily its most polished and refined one yet by a long shot. To start, previous attempts by ASUS had compromised secondary displays that were either small or lower quality. The Zenbook Duo UX8406, however, has two high-quality OLED displays that are identical in specifications. To allow users to take advantage of these two displays, it has a clever integrated kickstand that enables users to position the notebook in various ways. But perhaps the most ingenious thing about this notebook is how normal it looks and feels. Despite having two displays, it weighs just 1.35kg and is 19mm thick. These numbers are not far off from regular ultraportable laptops.
One of the reasons ASUS was able to make it this compact is its remarkable detachable keyboard. This keyboard attaches magnetically to the second display, and when it is attached, you can hardly tell that it’s detachable and that there’s a second display underneath it. What’s more, this keyboard feels entirely normal and isn’t compromised in any way, unlike in the past. The keys feel good and have decent key travel, while the trackpad is large and responsive. When you put it all together, you’ll realise that the Zenbook Duo UX8406 is possibly the best, and most perfect dual-display notebook ever made yet.
Check out our full review for more details.
Note: You can find the ASUS Zenbook Duo UX8406 on Amazon, Lazada, Shopee, and the ASUS Online Store.
Galaxy AI - Gen AI for mobile, done right
Galaxy AI.
Even though Google brought generative artificial intelligence to the mass market back in 2023 - in limited form, it was Samsung that managed to use AI to evolve communications and bring greater awareness about the perks of AI to the everyday person. Galaxy AI featured not one but several feats that are still not seen in other smartphones even half a year after its debut.
In its very first iteration of Galaxy AI, Samsung could offer real-time translation in phone calls and allow intuitive online search by circling what's on your screen, on top of doing nearly every other AI trick in the book (auto-summarisation of notes, generative editing of photos taken, and more). All these might sound primitive many years from now, but it's currently the best blend of generative AI in meaningful ways that enhance how you use a phone. Moreover, they didn't just limit these perks to their 2024 phones but even extended them to older models, which we tested and found to work perfectly.
Looking back, this could be the next big thing to happen in the mobile ecosystem after removing buttons and introducing apps nearly two decades ago. If you haven't experienced Galaxy AI yet, you should visit a Samsung showroom to understand the hype. It has set the baseline for what to expect from consumer AI beyond just fixing photos. We can't wait for Samsung's next iteration of updates.
Check out our full feature to find out more about Galaxy AI and our recent discussion with Samsung's Head of Smartphone Software Engineering Group.