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PC Pro Awards 2008: Technology Innovator
WINNER: Asus
Our judges were looking for the company that's made the biggest difference in terms of new technology over the last 12 months, and Asus squeezed home with the most votes. What won it? Helping to define an entirely new product category, the netbook, was number one, but it was also among the first to showcase Intel's new Atom processor.
Highly Commended: AMD, Apple
AMD steals a Highly Commended award due largely to its graphic arm, ATI. A succession of fast and well-priced products based around a technologically advanced core saw it challenge for the top position. Apple very nearly pipped both its rivals too. As ever, it was the company's skilful implementation of technology via some stunning designs that won it so many votes.Categories
Reliability & Service Awards
- Notebooks
- Desktop PCs
- Digital Cameras
- Printers
- Monitors
- Graphics Cards
- Motherboards
- Wireless Routers
- Smart Phones
- Web Hosts
- Broadband ISPs
- Online Retailers
Editorial Awards
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Finalists:
This is the most fiercely competed category of all, and we received a record number of entries from companies wishing to apply this year – as well as all the nominations we receive from PC Pro's staff members. To make the top ten is quite a feat. Here's why our seven other finalists made it to the shortlist.DisplayLink offered something a little different to the rest of our nominees. Devised by the co-inventor of the webcam (Dr Quentin Stafford Fraser) and the inventor of predictive text messaging, Martin King, this interesting technology allows up to six different monitors to be connected to a PC via a USB cable. It's multi-monitors for all, and is now starting to appear on new monitors and laptops.
DrayTek , already a winner in the Wireless Routers category of the Reliability & Service survey, was nominated for its impressive Draytek VigorPro 5510 UTM Firewall. What it lacks in glamour it makes up for in effectiveness, bringing not only threat management to small-to-medium sized businesses but also allowing them to take control of the information leaking out via networks.
To see why Gigabyte is nominated, you need to look deep into the heart of its latest range of motherboards: Dynamic Energy Saver technology. This innovation cuts power when it sees that the CPU is in an idle state, cutting both electricity bills and carbon dioxide emissions in the process.
Intel earned its place on our shortlist of technology superpowers due to its latest CPU being the absolute opposite: the Intel Atom is designed to consume the absolute minimum of power, while still offering levels of performance on a par with watt-hungry CPUs from just a year or two ago.
Another big name on the list is Microsoft. And the new technology that earned it that place is Live Mesh, the first remote file access system that completely eliminates the problem with synchronisation – and it works so smoothly you barely think about it.
RIM earns its place due the excellent design work behind the BlackBerry Bold. Quite apart from its striking looks, bright screen and superb keyboard, we were impressed by its sheer battery life: to last three to four days under heavy use, including tracking routes via GPS, is unheard of in a 3G phone.
The final place goes to Symantec. With PC Pro readers long complaining about the affect of security software on the smooth running of their PC, it's great to see a big company make such strides towards a "zero-impact" virus protection. The two products in question are Norton Internet Security 2009 and Norton AntiVirus 2009.
The PC Pro Awards 2008 are sponsored by:
