Best of Computing: Tech Awards 2023 Readers' Choice series
Here are the Best Computing Brands of the Year, as voted by you.
Tech Awards 2023 Readers' Choice Results - Part 1
You've read our picks of best products of the year in the Editor's Choice series of articles, but now the votes are in for the Readers' Choice series of Tech Awards 2023. These are the best technology brands and services in Singapore, as voted by you. We'd like to extend our gratitude to all our readers for participating in these polls, now in their 14th year running. Your participation in the Tech Awards process helps democratise these results, providing a clear message of real consumer sentiment and brand recognition across the tech industry.
This year, we have a total of 46 award categories for polling. After months of compiling the results from thousands of our readers, we're ready to share the outcome to help Singaporeans make an informed buying decision.
The result in this article is Part 1 (out of 4) and covers 18 out of 46 awards that make up the Best of Computing categories. Don't forget also to check out the Best of Gaming, Best of Consumer Electronics, and Best of Mobile & Services.
Best CPU Brand - Intel
With just one year under their belt, AMD has relinquished the Readers’ Choice Best CPU Brand award back to Intel. And judging by the votes, it would seem Intel’s efforts with their Performance Hybrid Architecture that started with 2021’s 12th Generation “Alder Lake” have put them back firmly in the lead. Interestingly, AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series is no less impressive, having swept both our Editor’s Choice Best Desktop CPU and Best Gaming CPU awards. We can only surmise that the Readers’ Choice results also factor in product lifecycle, and Intel’s 12th Gen came in at a time to surpass AMD’s Ryzen 5000 series mostly throughout 2022, while both 13th Gen “Raptor Lake” and Ryzen 7000 came out in the same period at the tail end of the year, and were neck and neck.
Best Motherboard Brand - ASUS
The 2023 Readers’ Choice Award for Best Motherboard Brand goes to…ASUS. Not only has the brand been a favourite of our readers year-on-year, but this year’s results have been their highest in the last decade, surpassing their previous high of 62% in 2020’s Awards. This year, ASUS comfortably leads with 65% of total votes, taking even more share from all other players. It is likely their aggressive coverage for every market segment that earned ASUS this recognition, from its ROG gaming series and ProArt for creatives to business and workstation models for both Intel and AMD systems. MSI and Gigabyte tie for second place with 14% of votes each, while Asrock is a distant third with just 4%.
Best SSD Brand - Samsung
Samsung is the winner of the Best SSD Brand award in this year’s Readers’ Choice voting with a total of 32% of overall votes. Their share of votes is very similar to last year’s win as well, where Samsung took 33% of the votes. The trends year-on-year for Best SSD Brand have been rather consistent, mostly with fiercer competition down the ranks, but this year looks to be spread more evenly. Seagate is in second place with 11% of the votes, while SanDisk and Intel share third place with 10% of the votes each. Even WD in fourth place is just 2 points behind at 8%, so it’s been a very close call this year compared to 2022’s results.
Best External Storage Brand — Seagate
Seagate managed to capture the most votes again to win our Readers’ Choice Best External Storage Brand award with 24% of overall votes. In second place is WD, with 20%, which is the same results as they got in last year’s Awards. What’s interesting though is that Samsung managed to leapfrog SanDisk to tie with WD in second place also with 20% of the votes (a 2% increase from last year), while SanDisk remains in third place with 19% (incidentally also the same results as in 2022). Still, it's just 1% point between WD, Samsung and SanDisk, so likely they’re viewed in very similar fashion among our readers.
Best NAS Brand - WD
If last year’s 30% win wasn’t a strong enough endorsement by our readers, then this year’s jump to 35% certainly is. WD seems to be gaining more traction as the preferred NAS brand for general consumers. As we noted before, just three years ago in 2020, WD only commanded 9% of the votes. The general improvement of home broadband speeds and increased data mobility has given rise to the use of more personal cloud storage devices. WD is generally a more consumer friendly brand, plus we believe that some high profile ransomware attacks to competitors such as ASUStor in 2022 also helped boost WD’s standings.
Best NAS Storage Brand - Seagate
We created the Best NAS Storage Brand category last year to differentiate brands that offer full NAS products (the prior category) and those that only produce the drives within (this category). Seagate was the inaugural winner of the NAS Storage Brand category in 2022, and continues to dominate in 2023 with a 46% majority of total votes. The breakdown of results look very similar to last year, but if you look closely, WD has gained 2% extra votes at the expense of Seagate. Maybe we’ll see a close competition next year, as WD seems to be gaining popularity in the NAS Brand category. Toshiba and HGST both retain the same share of votes as last year.
Best Wireless Networking Brand - ASUS
This year marks the 10th consecutive year that ASUS has won Readers’ Choice Best Wireless Networking Brand. And they’ve managed to increase their lead from 33% for the 2022 Awards to 39% in 2023. It is a stronghold for ASUS as a consumer brand that focuses on performance and adoption of the latest standards, especially with their ROG line of gaming routers. For example, during CES 2023 earlier this year, ASUS announced the world’s first quad-band Wi-Fi 7 gaming router, the ROG Rapture GT-BE98, with a whopping total bandwidth of 25,000Mbps. Then there's their ROG branded mesh networking system, a first for ASUS. Coming in at a combined second place (this seems to be happening a lot this year), is TP-Link and Linksys with 14% of votes each. While ASUS designs are attention-grabbing, TP-Link is no less feature-filled. For instance, they too launched a quad-band Wi-Fi 7 router at CES 2023, the Deco BE95, that perhaps has even more impressive features than the ASUS ROG GT-BE98 as it features two 6GHz bands instead of one for the ASUS.
Best IP Camera Brand - D-Link
We had to double (triple) check the results this year for Readers’ Choice Best IP Camera Brand award, because the outcome for the top 8 brands were exactly the same as last year. D-Link retains their title with 19% of the votes, though Samsung continues to nip at their back with 18%. The minor difference is where Prolink and Aztech; Hikvision and Anker swapped positions in the chart, even though they technically have the same percentage scores, which boiled down to very close calls of a few votes apart.
Best Webcam Brand - Logitech
Another new category from 2022, introduced due to the rise in webcam use over the past few years from Covid lockdowns and the need for remote work, which in turn required better-quality video and audio than your standard built-in notebook webcam could provide. Logitech has now won our Readers’ Choice Best Webcam Brand award the second year running, with 47% of the total votes counted. You can look at these results either as Logitech having a big leg up over the competition, or it is an untapped market with lots of room for other players to grow. It is still interesting that ASUS has not only retained their second place, but grew their vote share by 4% over last year’s results seeing that they don't really publicize about their webcam solutions, but they do have regular and ROG editions.
Best Home Printer Brand - Canon
Canon continues their streak to win this year’s Readers’ Choice Best Home Printer Brand award with a very similar 39% of the total votes. But unlike the previous two years, we see some movement with HP pulling ahead of Brother with 25% of the votes to come in second place. HP and Brother were tied in the 2022 Awards. Epson’s votes remain similar with 15% of the pie. The top brands focused on sustainability and cost efficiency innovations as printers are ultimately a consumable product. Canon went big on refillable ink tanks for their new MAXIFY GX and PIXMA G home printers, for example, while HP introduced their Instant Ink ink subscription service.
Best Office Printer Brand - Fujifilm Business Innovation
Last year’s results saw Fujifilm Business Innovation lose quite a chunk of their share of votes to the rest of the competition, and we surmised that was due to their name change from Fuji Xerox, a long-standing brand in the industry. And it turns out that we were right. This year’s results show Fujifilm Business Innovation back on top to win the Readers’ Choice Best Office Printer Brand with a more comfortable lead of 30%, while second place Canon has 21% of votes (and went on to win our SMB printer recommendation). Samsung and Brother tie for third with 16% each.
Best Computer Chair Brand - Secretlab
Secretlab continues to be the crowd favourite, winning the Best Computer Chair Brand award again with a healthy lead of 29% of the total votes. While there is a big dip from last year's 47%, Secretlab isn't the only one. ErgoTune has also dropped from second place (24% in 2022) to third with 10% of votes; Herman Miller takes over the two-spot with 11%. If you look at this year's chart, you’ll see many new players (Armaggeddon, ASUS, OSIM, etc.), and existing brands such as Ikea and Razer getting a larger piece of the pie.
Still, you have to give credit to Secretlab for turning a piece of furniture previously an afterthought, into a major consideration for any computing setup today. Ever since launching their Titan EVO series in 2021, Secretlab has spent the last year improving the quintessential 'computer chair experience', with add-on products such as swapable PlushCell Memory Foam armrest tops, SKINS chair sleeves, and premium footrests. They've also continued to invest in R&D to improve their Hybrid Leatherette and SoftWeave Plus materials specifically for Singapore's high-humidity environment.
Best Ultraportable Notebook Brand - Apple
Apple is our 2023 Readers’ Choice Ultraportable Notebook Brand yet again, but surprise, surprise, not by much. Apple secured the win with 25% of total votes, only 4% more than second-place ASUS. Now, we were tempted to say something about Apple’s new M2 chip being ‘too powerful’, or maybe PC notebook designs have just gotten better, with more premium materials used and better components such as OLED displays. But, when you look at the chart, ASUS didn’t really move much from last year (21% in 2023 vs. 20% in 2022). Similarly, Lenovo, Acer, Dell, HP are all within 1-2% of their 2022 results as well. If you take a good look at the chart again, you’ll notice that Aftershock came out of nowhere to take third place with 11% of the overall votes. They didn’t even register on the chart in any position in the past two years. Our best guess is that with WFH setups, people may be looking for gaming-capable notebooks with slim designs, and Aftershock is able to fill this niche at a better price range than say ASUS or Razer.
Best Convertible Notebook Brand - ASUS
In 2022, ASUS clung on to this award with just a 1% difference over rival Microsoft, but they’ve somehow managed to widen this gap by a whopping 11% this year. ASUS is our Readers’ Choice Best Convertible Notebook Brand for 2023 with a comfortable 31% share of the vote tally. Microsoft takes second place with 20%, while Lenovo comes in third with 17%. We attribute this win to the continuous effort ASUS puts into developing innovative convertible and hybrid notebooks, which seems to have a positive effect on keeping them in the minds of our readers, as opposed to just generational spec-bumps like the competition. The latter is certainly true for Microsoft's Surface Pro 8.
Best Business Notebook Brand - Lenovo
In our Best Business Notebook Brand category, Lenovo’s ThinkPad heritage lands them the win for another year yet again with 23% of the overall votes. However, Apple nips very closely at their heels with 21% (incidentally the same results in 2022). It would seem that despite this year’s M2 upgrades, our readers’ opinions about Apple have stayed pretty much the same. They neither gained nor lost their ground. ASUS on the other hand seems to be climbing up another category ladder, overtaking Dell (13%) for third place with 14%.
Best Specialty Notebook Brand - ASUS
The first new category for 2023, which was created as more brands have begun embracing new designs that challenge the traditional clamshell, with multi-screens, flexible displays, and niche features that do not factor into a generic notebook. The inaugural winner goes to ASUS with 38% of overall votes, with Lenovo coming in second with 17%. The results show that our readers do follow market trends quite closely with ASUS having quite a heritage of such interesting options such as the ZenBook Fold 17 OLED, ZenBook Pro Duu series and more. In the recent CES 2023, ASUS and Lenovo showcased the most interesting new products, such as the glasses-free 3D OLED ProArt StudioBook by ASUS, and the dual-screen Lenovo Yoga Book 9i - both of which won our Innovation Awards.
Best Video Conference Hardware Solutions Brand - Logitech
The second new category introduced this year is the Readers’ Choice Best Video Conference Hardware Solutions Brand. Yes, it is a mouthful, we know. This category came about as remote work has evolved into hybrid work as we go back into the office. What webcams are to the WFH setup, video conference hardware is for the office. The inaugural winner is Logitech, with 36% of overall votes, while Microsoft comes in second with 22%, and Cisco third with 15%. We should also note that during the voting period, HP and Poly were two separate brands, but as this report is published, HP has completed their acquisition of Poly, and you can technically treat it as a combined score.
Best Video Conferencing Software Brand – Zoom
With hardware must come software, and the winner of the Best Video Conferencing Software Brand is…Zoom. They take the award with 39% of overall votes, followed very closely by Microsoft teams with 36%. Google Meet comes in a distant third with 11% of votes, and then it is a sharp drop off into single digit territory. Zoom’s win is no real surprise. The brand has become synonymous with video conferencing, to the point of being the generic ‘verb’ in casual conversation regardless of software used. Microsoft Teams on the other hand, can probably attribute their high vote count to the fact that it’s widely integrated in many workplace solutions.
That wraps up the Readers' Choice voting for the Best of Computing segment, but don't forget to check out the results in these other categories too:-
Lastly, don't forget that we've also published our Editor's Choice results here to help you get the best of the best gear.
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