Tech Awards 2024 Readers’ Choice: Best of Personal & DIY Computing

HWZ Tech Awards 2024 Best of Personal Computing

You've read our picks in the Editor's Choice series showcasing the best products of the year as tested by our editorial team, and now we present the results of the Readers' Choice series of Tech Awards 2024. 

This segment of the awards highlights the top tech brands and services in Singapore, as chosen by you. We extend our heartfelt thanks to all our readers for participating in these polls, now in their 15th year. 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 47 award categories for polling—many of them brand new as we constantly retool our survey to stay relevant to our audience. After a month of compiling the results from thousands of our readers, we're ready to share the outcome to help Singaporeans make an informed buying decision and highlight why these brands came out ahead.

This article covers 9 out of 47 awards that make up the Best of Personal Computing categories. Be sure to stick around to check out the results of the other categories that will be published in the coming days. Meanwhile, here are the contents of this article:-

1. Best Ultraportable Laptop Brand
2. Best Convertible Laptop Brand
3. Best External Storage Brand
4. Best Wireless Networking Brand
5. Best Security Camera Brand
6. Best Home Printer Brand
7. Best Webcam Brand
8. Best Computer Chair Brand
9. Best Computer Table Brand

Best Ultraportable Laptop Brand - Apple

Considering the dominance of Apple’s M-series chips, there’s little surprise that Apple was voted the Readers’ Choice Best Ultraportable Laptop Brand again. Apple’s custom chips deliver excellent performance and are extremely power efficient, making them the ideal chips to power ultraportable laptops. Coupled with their excellent displays and class-leading build quality, it’s no wonder that they are the ultraportable laptop of choice for many. And it would seem that our readers agree. This year, it increased its share and garnered nearly 30% of all votes compared to last year's showing. ASUS was a distant second was 17% of votes, while Lenovo rounded up the podium with a share of 12%. That said, it will be intriguing to see if Apple can hold on to its position next year because Intel and AMD are set to counter with new families of chips and Qualcomm enters the fray with its Snapdragon X Elite chips.

Best Convertible Laptop Brand - ASUS

ASUS continues to be the number one convertible laptop brand with a 26% share of the votes in this category, but that’s nearly five points less than last year. The brand continues to impress with its Zenbook Flip and Vivobook Flip series of convertible notebooks, but Lenovo is not standing still, and its Yoga Book 9i has been winning fans for its interesting dual-display multi-mode design. As a result, it climbed to number two this year with a 22% share of the votes – up from 17% last year. Microsoft fell from second to third with 16% of the votes, which is to be expected, seeing that it only just updated its Surface Pro device weeks ago.

Best External Storage Brand - SanDisk

In what must be a sign of the changing times, SanDisk has snatched the number one position from Seagate, who has led this category for the past few years. SanDisk led the category with 29% of votes, with Samsung trailing behind in second with 23%.  Seagate fell to third with 21%. WD, which usually trails just a few points behind Seagate, was a distant fourth with 12%. This meant that, for the first time, the leading brands in this category were flash storage brands. SanDisk’s performance is not surprising. The brand has been a strong presence at local tech shows and its flash memory cards are extremely popular, particularly amongst gamers and the photography community. Not to mention, attractively priced external storage helps its cause too.

Best Wireless Networking Brand - ASUS

ASUS continues to be the number one brand in the wireless networking category, but its lead has been eroded by TP-Link. This year, they managed to record 31% of votes, which is nearly 8% less than last year and represents a delta change of around 20%. TP-Link, on the other hand, saw its share of the votes increase from 14% last year to 20% this year – an increase of around 44%. Interestingly, third-placed Linksys and fourth-placed D-Link did not see their share of votes change much at all. Though ASUS continues to impress with high-end routers with great feature sets, TP-Link has been aggressively partnering with ISPs (such as MyRepublic, Singtel and StarHub) to provide routers for high-end fibre plans. It appears that the strategy has paid off. The following months will be interesting to see as we expect Wi-Fi 7 to become more prevalent through the launch of more Wi-Fi 7 routers and compatible client devices.

Best Security Camera Brand - TP-Link & Tapo

It was a close fight for the top spot in this category, but TP-Link and sub-brand Tapo took first place with 21% of the votes – a mere 2% ahead of second-place D-Link - making this their inaugural win in our HardwareZone Tech Awards. If you have ever shopped around for a security camera, it’s easy to see why. TP-Link/Tapo is a perennial presence at IT shows and the brand markets itself heavily too on online shopping platforms. It also helps that they have a wide range of security cameras to suit various needs and environments, and often at very attractive price points. The TP-Link Tapo C225, for example, records 2K footage, supports Apple HomeKit, and uses AI to identify subjects and can be found for well under a hundred dollars.

Best Home Printer Brand - Canon

Printers are one of those devices that no home can do without, and Canon was once again the runaway leader in this category with over a third of the votes. It was a very close fight for second place. HP and Brother were second and third with 22% and 21% of the votes, respectively. The past year was a busy one for Canon as it re-branded its Pixma and Maxify lines by adding the MegaTank name to the lineup, reiterating to customers and the public that it remains committed to producing high-quality prints and low costs. 

Best Webcam Brand - Logitech

Webcams have become indispensable accessories now that hybrid work arrangements have become the norm for certain roles and industries. Leading the way is Logitech with a massive 44% of the votes. Though its share is sizeable, it’s slightly lower than the 47% share that it got last year. Storming to second place is Creative with 11%, which improved on its share of 7% the year before. It looks like Creative's relentless updates to their webcams are paying off. ASUS/ROG slid slightly to third place with 10%. Logitech’s win in this category is not surprising, considering the brand’s strong presence in computer accessories. Furthermore, Logitech has a strong lineup of webcams ranging from 720p and Full-HD units to high-end 4K ones with HDR and built-in noise cancelling.

Best Computer Chair Brand - Secretlab

When you sit on a Secretlab Titan Evo chair, it’s easy to see why it was – once again – the runaway leader in this category. It’s just so comfy. However, its 24% share of the votes is a dip from last year’s 29%. It’s also a huge drop from 2022’s share of a whopping 47%. This is to be expected as it seems not a day passes without some new player entering the gaming chair scene. If you study the chart closely, you’ll see many new names like TTRacing, AKRacing, DXRacer, Noblechairs, and more. The most surprising outcome is ASUS moving up the ranks to hold third place this year, while Razer lost mindshare. Even so, we think Secretlab will continue to maintain its position in this space for the foreseeable future because it has a solid product, excellent after-sales service, and a strong market presence. 

Best Computer Table Brand - Omnidesk

Omnidesk is a pioneer in the computer table space – at least in Singapore. It was one of the first brands to heavily market tables with features and accessories designed for gaming (think cable management and headphone stands). Over the years, Omnidesk has expanded its lineup by increasing the number of sizes and finishes, and with different kinds of tables, including L-shaped ones. It even has tables for children and coffee tables, and an app that allows users to control their tables. That early strategy has clearly paid off, as it garnered a sizeable 25% of the votes in our inaugural polling category. Talk about first-mover advantage. However, its position will be challenged by Secretlab and Ikea, who are second and third, respectively. Both have 14% of votes, with only a 14-vote difference between them.

That wraps up the Readers' Choice voting segment for the Best of Personal Computing. Next up, here’s the Readers’ Choice results for DIY Computing.

Best of DIY Computing

The Readers’ Choice series of Tech Awards 2024 is a follow-up to the Editor’s Choice series, and unlike the latter where our editorial team picks the best products after rounds of tests and benchmarks, it is our readers like you who vote for your favourite tech brands, products or services in our annual poll.

Now in its 15th year, our Readers’ Choice provides a clear message of real consumer sentiment and brand recognition across the tech industry. This year, we have 47 award categories for polling, and after a month of compiling the results from thousands of our readers, we're ready to share the outcome to help Singaporeans make an informed buying decision and highlight why these brands came out ahead.

This article covers 5 out of 47 awards that comprise the Best of DIY Computing categories. Be sure to stick around to check out the results of the other categories that will be published in the coming days. Meanwhile, here are the contents of this article:-

1. Best Graphics Processor Brand
2. Best Graphics Card Brand
3. Best CPU Brand
4. Best SSD Brand
5. Best Motherboard Brand

Best Graphics Processor Brand - NVIDIA

Over the past years, our readers have consistently picked NVIDIA as their graphics processor of choice and this year is no different – the winner of 2024’s Readers’ Choice Best Graphics Processor Brand goes to NVIDIA with a massive 76% of the overall votes. However, unlike the years between 2021 to 2023, where AMD consistently chipped away at NVIDIA’s majority of the votes, 2024 actually saw the red company dropping 4% - from last year’s 28% of the total votes. NVIDIA’s 76% represents the green company’s highest tally yet and is a sign of its continued dominance of the GPU segment as much as it showcases AMD’s struggle to match the popularity (and performance) of the GeForce RTX 40 series.

Best Graphics Card Brand - ASUS

ASUS has won the Best Graphics Card Brand for 14 years in a row, and if you’re doing the math, that means they have won every year since our very first Reader’s Choice series. Now they can add no.15 to their trophy-laden cabinet. But they cannot rest on their laurels, because this year ASUS has dropped their vote share from last year’s 51% down to 47%. Another brand that saw a drop is Zotac, going from 2023’s 6% down to 4% in 2024. Gigabyte, MSI and Sapphire remain popular with our readers, seeing slight but meaningful increases in the vote count. It’s difficult to fathom the latest popularity trend here, but we suspect part of it could be due to the better performing GeForce RTX 4080 Super cards from Gigabyte and MSI.

Best CPU Brand - Intel

The result for the Best CPU Brand category in our Reader’s Choice series is an interesting one. While AMD’s Ryzen 7000 series has won plaudits for its performance and power efficiency (The excellent Ryzen 7700 and Ryzen 7950X3D are still our recommended gaming and desktop processors), it seems that the majority of our readers still prefer an Intel platform for their computers. This is even despite Intel’s current flagship Core i9-14900K’s mediocre performance when compared to the Core i9-13900K and AMD’s best processors on offer. Perhaps it is a case of familiarity for many long-time Intel owners (and there are way more mainstream Intel owners than enthusiasts), who still perceive Intel as the “faster choice” and the more “bug-free or stable option”.  These notions do not hold in 2024, of course, but perceptions like these can be difficult to shake. Meanwhile, for AMD, their mind share is a sliver better than last year.

Best SSD Brand - Samsung

Samsung makes very good solid-state drives (SSD), and the majority of our readers agree, as the brand once again takes home the Best SSD Brand award in this year’s Readers’ Choice voting. But that said, this year’s competition is fiercer than ever, with its closest competitor, Seagate, chipping away a large portion of votes from Samsung. Its share has increased from last year’s 11% to 16%, the most significant gain (and Samsung’s biggest loss) for the company in recent years. The SSD popularity fight seems to be largely focused on Samsung and Seagate, with voting count for other brands like WD, Intel and SanDisk remaining more or less unchanged from 2023’s Readers' Choice.

Best Motherboard Brand - ASUS

ASUS has won the Best Motherboard Brand consistently for years, and they have done it again by winning the 2024 Reader’s Choice Award. While last year’s 65% has been their highest in the last decade, 2024’s poll results show a big drop to 56%. That’s a massive – almost 10% – drop in popularity. Those votes have swung mostly to Gigabyte, which jumped from 14% in 2023 to a high of 21% this year. MSI and even ASRock have gained, albeit smaller, ground at 17% and 6%, respectively. This isn’t the only category that ASUS has lost votes in, and despite it still being the most popular brand in many other categories such as this and for graphics cards, we think our PC enthusiast voters are probably a bit more price-sensitive in 2024 as a reflection of the current global economy – which has been quite gloomy of late. Gigabyte seems to be just more competitive when it comes to pricing and value.

That wraps up the Readers' Choice voting segment for the Best of DIY Computing, but be sure to check out the results in these other categories that we'll be publishing over the next few days:-

• Part 1: Best of Personal and DIY Computing (this article)
• Part 2: Best of Mobile and Lifestyle Tech
• Part 3: Best of Home Appliances and Home Entertainment Brands
• Part 4: Best Service Provider Brands and Brands in Gaming

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.