HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2011 Reader's Choice Results

Tech Awards 2011 - Bigger and Better than Ever!

For the uninitiated, our first Tech Awards was held in 2001 and it was the first ever event to recognize the efforts of the tech industry in the entire region. We followed that up in 2002, but stopped for the next eight years as we focused on expanding HWM into regional markets and growing HardwareZone.com into a major IT portal in the region. Our hard work has paid off as HWM is now South-East Asia’s premier consumer technology title with independent editions in Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, and of course, Singapore. And HardwareZone.com is now Asia Pacific's leading online IT portal with the most encompassing set of services and information with the strongest tech community of over 350,000 members, a figure that's still steadily growing.

After a eight-year hiatus, 2010 saw the return of the Tech Awards. The HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2010 was held in 3rd February last year, and we handed out 32 Editor's Choice awards from an eventual shortlist of 150 products, and 28 Reader's Choice awards comprising of 80 brands, organizations, and a small selection of favorite tech services and stores.

This year's HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards was held on 23rd February, and it served to honor the best in tech products and services that were introduced between December 2009 and November 2010. This time round, we paid tribute to 39 companies across 69 categories. A grand total of 32 Editor’s Choice and 37 Reader’s Choice awards were handed out in categories ranging from computers, consumer electronics, communications and digital entertainment.

For the Editor's Choice awards, more than 170 products that fit the test categories were subject to a series of stringent benchmarking tests in the HardwareZone labs, where we evaluated the results through a specific criteria consisting of performance, consumer benefits, value and technology advancements, before finally deciding on the winners. For the Reader's Choice awards, voting was opened to readers of HWM and the online tech community in HardwareZone.com. We're proud to say that the poll garnered a total of about 80,000 votes from members of the public.

Compared to last year, an additional nine categories were introduced to the Reader’s Choice awards. New categories include Best Mirrorless Camera Brand, Best Tablet Brand, Best Mobile CPU Brand, Best PC Memory Brand, Best NAS Brand, Best GPS Brand, Best Plasma TV Brand, Best 3D TV Brand, and Best Consumer HD Camcorder Brand. This was after taking into consideration readers’ feedback and the ongoing need for the Awards to reflect the ever-evolving technology landscape that is shaping our lives and gadgets we use on a daily basis. Also new this year was the ability for readers to vote for their favourite brands online via their mobile devices.

Without further ado, here are the details of the Reader's Choice results. The event coverage and the Editor's Choice results will follow suit shortly in two more dedicated articles. So read on, and stay tuned!

Reader's Choice Awards - Computing (Part 1)

Back in November 2010, we asked you for your favorite brands, products, and services in 37 categories (9 more than Tech Awards 2010) spanning the tech industry trinity of computing, communications, and consumer electronics. Your response was overwhelmingly, with about 80,000 votes cast in total for the HWM+HardwareZone.com Tech Awards 2011 Reader's Choice. Here then are the results of this survey, as decided by our members and subscribers.

Best Desktop CPU Brand

2010 had seen Intel launching its first 32nm processors, and its Core i7-980X Extreme Edition was without doubt the most powerful desktop processor of the year. Even besides the highest end SKU, many of the Core i5/i7 processors were well ahead of the competition in terms of outright performance. As such, it easily won the best desktop CPU brand category by garnering an incredible 86% share of the votes. 

Best Mobile CPU Brand

It's more of the same on the notebook front as well with the 32nm processors making their way into this segment with mobile variants. The new processor came with a new platform that upgraded the overall system capabilities and even better battery life than its predecessors. Not to forget, Intel Atom processors were still dominant in the low-end segment of netbooks too and all this led up to readers giving Intel the thumbs up again with 87% of all votes in the mobile CPU category.  AMD has several processor updates in 2011, so it will be interesting to see if they can snag some market share in the near future.

Best Gaming Graphics Chip Brand

The GeForce GTX 460 was sort of a turning point for NVIDIA last year. It was easily one of the best to come out of the green camp for a while, with great performance, decent power and thermal requirements, and an attractive price to boot. Our readers clearly favored NVIDIA too, with 67% of the votes in the GPU category. 

Best Graphics Card Brand

In the more fragmented and arguably more competitive graphics card market,  ASUS has once again topped our Reader's Choice with 37% of the votes. Interestingly, ASUS has managed to improve on its results in both motherboard and graphics card categories compared to last year.

Best Motherboard Brand

For the motherboard category, ASUS came out on top with 48% of all votes cast. Similar to the previous year, this was twice the number of votes compared to its nearest competitor. ASUS' range of products, along with its reputation for reliability and quality, have certainly made a lasting impression on consumers.

Best PC Memory Brand

Kingston is the outright winner in the PC memory category with 66% of the votes. It's wide offerings, good local warranty and support, easy availability and highly competitive prices certainly played a huge part in its win.

Reader's Choice Awards - Computing (Part 2)

Best Desktop PC Brand

The crown for best desktop PC brand has changed hands this year. Apple, who was last year's runner-up with 30% of the votes, has toppled HP this year with 35%. The latter has dropped to second place with 27%. Without any doubt, the Mac's mind share is now at an all-time high. Can they sustain the momentum? If going by their , there's probably a good chance that Apple would also innovate to stay ahead of the desktop competition. Going by vendor announcements and launches, they are not going to be taking it lying down, so Apple will have its work cut out for it.

Best Inkjet Printer Brand

With 47% of the votes, Canon is our readers' number one inkjet printer brand. We attribute this achievement to Canon's broad spectrum of products and aggressive marketing efforts. They've certainly delighted their customers; even ourselves, going by our Editor's Choice test results.

Best Laser Printer Brand

It was a close race between HP and Canon in the laser printer category. Ultimately, HP won with a 29% share of the votes, just 2% more than second-placed Canon. Compared to last year's result, both brands seemed to have taken votes away from Fuji Xerox (18%).

Best Wireless Networking Brand

While it didn't fare as well as last year, Linksys by Cisco still managed to garner a majority 40% of the votes. Together with D-Link (27%), both brands took close to 70% of the votes. The remaining 30% was split among at least six other brands.

Best Antivirus/Internet Security Software Brand

In the antivirus/internet security category, the story hasn't changed much compared to last year. The top three vendors are: Symantec (32%), McAfee (23%), and Kaspersky (14%). But make no mistake: this is a highly competitive market with many vendors providing both paid and free antivirus/internet security solutions. 

Reader's Choice Awards - Computing (Part 3)

Best Desktop Internal HDD Brand

We've an almost identical situation here compared to last year's results: Seagate, especially after its acquisition of Maxtor, has made the internal hard disk drive (HDD) category its own. Admittedly, Western Digital at 34% is not too far behind. Both Samsung and Hitachi seem to have equal followings.

Best External HDD Brand

Last year, Seagate won the external HDD category with a 1% margin over Western Digital. This time round, Western Digital is the winner with 33% of the votes, compared to Seagate's 30%. We expect these two brands to dominate this segment for a long time to come.

Best Removable Flash Storage Brand

Flash memory card giant SanDisk is the runaway winner in the removable flash storage category. With a product portfolio that includes flash memory cards for mobile and camera devices, USB flash drives, embedded memory for mobile devices, and even solid state drives, we're not at all surprised by this result.

Best NAS Brand

The network-attached storage (NAS) category is one hotly contested category with no less 10 brands involved. This is also a new category that we've created in this year's Tech Awards. Eventually, D-Link emerged as the winner with 26% of the votes. This is mostly attributed to its value for money options as well as good support. Overall, we're glad that many vendors were involved, as this translates to an active market with many choices for consumers. This is a category that needs to provide solutions to a wide range of users, thus there's certainly a lot of room for each vendor to grow their niche.

Best LCD Monitor Brand

Nice designs, good performance and plenty of options are probably the reasons why readers gave their votes to Samsung. The reputation of the company's TVs probably created a halo effect too. With more than half of the votes, it's going to take some effort for the other brands to catch up.

Best Component Retailer

There are many retailers dealing in PC components in Singapore, many of which are located at Sim Lim Square. After counting the votes, Fuwell emerged victorious again this year. This year's results also showed the rise of Best Bargain (15%), Cybermind (14%) and Bizgram (11%).

Reader's Choice Awards - Consumer Electronics (Part 1)

Best Notebook Brand

Apple has retained the crown it won last year for best notebook brand. The blend of Mac OS X and Apple's industrial design has proven to be a winning combination. Among all the other brands, only ASUS with its 14% managed to garner a double-digit percentage of the votes. As you can see, the notebook space is hotly contested by several players, each with its unique blend of offerings.

Best Gaming Notebook Brand

Alienware is a wholly owned subsidiary of Dell, Inc., and it specializes in putting together high-performance desktops and notebooks for professional and gaming purposes. It's 44% share of votes suggests that consumers are happy with what the brand has to offer thus far, such as its M series gaming laptops. Interestingly, ASUS has a pretty large second place standing too at 29% with its G-series of gaming laptops.

Best Netbook Brand

Despite the popularity of tablet devices, the netbook market is still alive and kicking. For this category, ASUS is the winner here with 30% of the votes. That's nearly three times the number of votes over its nearest competitor. It looks like ASUS' Eee PC series is still going strong.

Best Tablet Brand

For the most part of 2010, there was only one tablet in the market. So unsurprisingly, Apple has won this category with a staggering 75% of the votes. Or in other words, the iPad alone won 75% of the votes. We expect a fiercer contest come next year.

Reader's Choice Awards - Consumer Electronics (Part 2)

Best Point & Shoot Digital Camera Brand

On a worldwide basis, Canon has been the number one brand in terms of market share for digital still compacts for the past eight years. In other words, the popularity of the IXUS and PowerShot series of compact cameras is without question. The readers clearly thought so too, giving Canon 48% of the votes cast.

Best DSLR Camera Brand

Throw a stone at a group of DSLR users and you'd most likely hit either a Canon EOS or a Nikon user. The chart above paints a similar picture: both brands combined to grab 87% of the votes. This mirrors their hold on the DSLR market. This year, the Reader's Choice award goes to Canon (47%).

Best Mirrorless Digital Camera Brand

The "mirrorless" interchangeable lens digital camera market is a new and rapidly expanding segment. So new that the industry hasn't really agreed on what this segment should be called. From the votes, we can see that this is a tightly contested market. Sony, riding high on the success of the NEX series, won with 28% of the votes. Olympus, at 26%, is a close second.

Best Consumer HD Camcorder Brand

The current crop of consumer HD camcorders comes in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Unlike those from the yesteryears, they're now easier to use and shoot hours and hours of video in high definition. With 35% of the votes, Canon has beaten the rest to become our readers' favorite consumer HD camcorder brand.

Best GPS Brand

Best global positioning system (GPS) brand is another new category we've in this year's Tech Awards. With 67% of the votes, Garmin outpaced the competition to take home the trophy.

Reader's Choice Awards - Consumer Electronics (Part 3)

Best LCD TV Brand

If you're shopping for a LCD TV, chances are you'd have come across Samsung's Series 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 TVs with sizes ranging from 19 to 55 inches. Aesthetically pleasing, capable visual performance and attractive prices are some comments commonly cited for Samsung's LCD TVs. In this category, our readers gave the Korean giant 49% of the votes.

Best Plasma TV Brand

The domination of LCD TVs means that not many makers are willing to continue to manufacture plasma displays. Sony, Philips, Toshiba, and Pioneer are some of the big names that have abandoned plasma. But this category still has a strong following as shown by the readers who voted. In this case, their favorite brand is Panasonic, who won 44% of the votes.

Best 3D TV Brand

The darling of the current HDTV market, the sales of 3D TVs is expected to explode in the coming two years. For consumers who have already jumped onto the bandwagon, Samsung seems to be their favorite brand (who was also the earliest to the scene), as attested by the 47% share of votes the brand received.

Best Projector Brand

The projector category is another hotly contested category with at least 11 brands involved. The eventually winner is NEC with 19% of the votes. InFocus is a close second with 17%.

Best Home Theater System Brand

Bose is the clear winner in the home theater system category, garnering 38% of the votes.

Best Pay TV Service

For local pay TV service, StarHub TV (82%) is our readers' choice once again. It looks like SingTel's winning of the Barclays English Premier League broadcasting rights did not sway the votes in its favor by much.

Best Consumer Electronics Megastore

Same as last year, it seems that the local population prefers getting their CE fix at Harvey Norman (30%). The second place goes to Best Denki (28%). As you can see, there's very little that separates the two.

Reader's Choice Awards - Communications

Best Business Smartphone Brand

Maybe it's the robustness of the BlackBerry Enterprise Server and the BlackBerry Internet Service. Or perhaps it's the physical keyboard. Judging from the votes, RIM's BlackBerry series of smartphones continues to be the choice among business users. And with their recent new hardware updates such as the and , they've done even more right stuff to persuade business users to stay on with them. Kudos to RIM, they've gotten 53% of the votes this year, compared to last year's 40%.

Best Lifestyle Mobile Phone Brand

Since the launch of the first iPhone in 2007, the mobile phone landscape has changed significantly, with competition now heavily focused on phone operating systems. Apple has won the best lifestyle mobile phone brand with a decisive 66% share of the votes. This is a 22% jump from the 44% it achieved last year.

Best Mobile Operator

SingTel remains the market leader for mobile service in Singapore, and our votes reflected this with 53% choosing the red of SingTel over the other two telcos.

Best Internet Service Provider

It's much closer fight when we come to the best ISP, but this was narrowly won by SingNet, who beat StarHub by a mere 2% margin.

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