Reg Hardware Awards 2012: The Winners…
…and The Loser
Almost 17,000 votes were cast by Reg readers when we asked you all to name the best – and the worst – tech products of 2012.
We asked you to tell us which kit you though most warranted a Reg Hardware Award from shortlists in a variety of categories: laptop, tablet, e-reader, home entertainment device and smartphone, but we also asked you to pick your favourite technology retailer, media service provider and mobile service provider.
We know you like your games, so we asked you to choose the best game of 2012 and to select the classic title you think most worthy of a place in our Antique Codeshow Hall of Fame.
Finally, giving you the rein, we asked you to name the best technology product of 2012 – and the choose the worst, to receive our decidedly uncoveted Rusty Dodo Award.
All your votes are in, and we’ve totted up the tallies, so here are the winners.
Laptop of the Year
Apple MacBook Pro 15in with Retina Display
Runners Up Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Carbon, Samsung Series 7
Tablet of the Year
Asus Google Nexus 7
Runners Up Apple iPad 4, Samsung Galaxy Note 2
Smartphone of the Year
Samsung Galaxy S III
Runners Up Apple iPhone 5, LG Google Nexus 4
E-Reader of the Year
Amazon Kindle Paperwhite
Runners Up Amazon Kindle, Asus Google Nexus 7
Home Entertainment Product of the Year
Humax YouView DTR-T1000 IPTV Freeview DVR
Runners Up Sony KD-84X9005 84in ultra-HD TV, LG 55LM960V 55in Smart TV
Tech Retailer of the Year
Amazon
Runners Up Ebuyer, John Lewis
Media Service Provider of the Year
Netflix
Runners Up Freeview HD, Sky
Mobile Service Provider of the Year
Three
Runners Up EE 4G, O2
Game of the Year
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2
Runners Up Borderlands 2, Dishonored
Antique Codeshow Hall of Fame Award
Lemmings
Runners Up Half-life, Carmageddon
How did the voting go? In most cases, the winner in each category was clear, garnering two or three times as many votes as its nearest rival. There were exceptions: in the Media Service Provider of the Year vote, Netflix was ahead of Freeview HD by a relatively small margin, not much between the top three e-readers, but only a handful of points separated the major Mobile Service Providers. Likewise, Half-Life scored almost as many votes as Lemmings in the Antique Code Show Hall of Fame voting, but the small blue suicide squads just clinched the award. Maybe next year, Half-life fans?
And now for Product of the Year. We got some interesting, possibly sanity questioning suggestions, most notably "the Olympics opening ceremony", though there is a certain logic to it. Less so "fish fingers" and "Jaffa Cakes" – both tasty items but not what we were really after. El Reg‘s Editor was particularly tickled by the suggestion "Lewis Page Bullshit Generator v2" – as was the girlfriend of the (chap?) who voted for "my partner’s rampant rabbit".
There were lots of votes for various Apple items and an assortment of Samsung-branded kit appeared on the list, but after totting up the numbers and adding in extra ones for folk who mis-spelled the names, we can announced that the Reg Hardware Product of the Year 2012 is the:
Google Nexus 7
Honorable Runner Up Raspberry Pi
The votes for the Rusty Dodo Award comprised pretty much the same products that appeared in the Product of the Year list – though we notice the latter did not include Windows 8, which did make the list of products you think are a bit duff. Again, pretty much every recent Samsung tech toy garnered at least one vote, but again by totting up all the suggestions and variations on a theme, the Rusty Dodo Award 2012 goes to:
Apple