Striving to bring recognition to manufacturers of high-technology equipment, the iXBT.com editorial team decided to institute three awards:

Reviewed by iXBT.com

The Reviewed by iXBT.com award recognizes the products, which have gone through the iXBT.com lab tests. This award is presented to a manufacturer, whose products were tested in our lab, got reviewed, and their reviews are published on the iXBT.com web site, in the iXBT.com magazine, or on the Digit-Life.com web site.

Original Design

Modern IT market is flooded with clones. Life-cycle of a product became shorter, so most manufacturers do not spend their time and resources on their own designs. Instead, they often follow the so called "reference design", changing only the name of the product and the package appearance. That's why in order to encourage efforts of the manufacturers who create innovative products different from reference designs, the editorial team of iXBT.com institutes the Original Design award.

This award can be honored to a product with an original design, which is essentially different from the reference design. The product must be tested in the iXBT.com lab and then have a review (concerning the test results) published on the iXBT.com web site, in the iXBT.com magazine, or on the Digit-Life.com web site.

The Original Design award can be selected only once a month and must provide links to the reviews of the awarded products.

External Storage Devices Awards

Flash drive, external hard disk, or any other similar device can be honored with the Original Design award, if it features:

• High extra functionality not to the damage of the main characteristics
• Essentially new data storage technologies or the ones noticeably different from the popular options used in standard storage devices
• Record speed characteristics, noticeably faster than those in competitors, or the capacity considerably exceeding the average values
• New promising interfaces to connect to computers
• Being a model of design (appearance, compact size, or ergonomics) not to the damage of its speed and capacity characteristics
• Other things that are not listed here

September 2004 Awards

Transcend StoreJet portable external hard disk

Pretec i-Disk Tiny 2.0 flash drive

TV Tuner and Multimedia Video Card Awards

TV tuner or a multimedia video card can be honored with the Original Design award, if it demonstrates the following distinctive features:

• Original hardware solutions aimed to improve the sound and image quality
• Hardware implementation of extra unique features, which are not directly connected with audio and video
• Original design
• Other things that are not listed here

September 2004 Awards

Greenwood TV POP 1280S

3D Video Cards Awards

A video card can be awarded with Original Design, if the tests revealed the following features distinguishing it from the reference design:

• Original cooling system, which is more effective at the least possible level of noise
• Support for extra features, such as Video-In (if it is not provided by the reference design)
• Other things that are not listed here

It goes without saying that, for example, a PCB color different from the reference design cannot be considered an innovation.

September 2004 Awards

ASUS V9999 Gamer Edition 256MB AGP

Projectors Awards

A projector can be honored with the Original Design award, if it features:

• Original design^*
  • Catchy construction of the projector case (form, elements, material, colors, etc), which attracts attention and distinguishes this projector against typical devices, as well as associates this projector with things having nothing to do with projectors.

• Functional design^*
  • Special design of the projector, which considerably facilitates operations with this device (configuration, transporting, managing modes, etc), and/or introduces functions, which are not typical of common projectors (quick start, direct power control, mechanical colour filters); the use of original technologies allowing qualitative improvements of the product characteristics (micro mirrors to increase brightness, light-refracting element to smooth the edges between pixels, etc).

^* It also concerns accessories, e.g. remote control, leveling foot, etc.

The awarded projector may possess both original design and functional construction, or only one of the features. The more features of the projector fall under the listed-above categories, the higher its chances are to get the Original Design award. Even a single but pronounced feature, which distinguishes the product against the others, may yield this award. The award is deserved by the first models appearing on the market, possessing some distinctive feature. Copies of the existing solutions, clones, sequels in the series, etc are of less value.

September 2004 Awards

InFocus Screenplay 5700

Digital audio – sound cards awards

A sound card can be awarded with Original Design, if the tests revealed the following features:

• The original construction of the card providing ease of use, which does not harm the functionality and audio quality
• Other things that are not listed here

September 2004 Awards

ESI Juli@

Excellent Package

It's always pleasant to buy a product and find out that the package includes additional equipment, software, games, souvenirs, etc. It's nice to think that the product you bought is well worth its price, and it's twice as nice to buy a well-bundled product at a moderate price. In practice, some manufacturers tend to save on every item, even if the inclusion of this item into the product package raises the price by less than 10%. Thus, the editorial team of iXBT.com institutes the Excellent Package award to bring recognition to those manufacturers, who offer nice boxes with excellent package content (the product plus useful accessories) instead of featureless boxes with minimal package content (CD with drivers).

This award can be presented to a product with an original box and unique package content. The product must be tested in the iXBT.com lab, and the results of these tests must be published in a review on the iXBT.com web site, the iXBT.com magazine, or the Digit-Life.com web site.

The Excellent Package award can be selected only once a month and must refer to the awarded product reviews.

Digital Cameras Awards

A digital camera can be awarded with Excellent Package, if the tests demonstrated the following features distinguishing it from the other products on the market at that moment:

• Original box
• Rich bundle including additional equipment and/or accessories
• Large set of useful software
• Other things that are not listed here

September 2004 Awards

Digital camera MINOX Leica M3

Additional information

The same award cannot be given to a product more than once.

A product can get several different awards.

Printed award certificates can be provided by written request via e-mail: pr@ixbt.com

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