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.

Printer Awards

A printer may be awarded with Original Design, if this model...

• Possesses unique functionality for these days
• Comes shipped with an outstanding software package
• Offers something revolutionary new to the market
• A model of engineering art
• Other things that are not listed here

December 2005 Awards

HP Photosmart 475 Ink-Jet Photo Printer

HP Photosmart 8253 Ink-Jet Photo Printer

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.

December 2005 Awards

ASUS Extreme Dual N7800GT 512MB

Gigabyte GeForce 6600GT Silent PCI-E 256MB DDR2

Gainward PowerPack GeForce 7800GTX 512MB Golden Sample PCI-E

External Storage Devices Awards

A flash drive, an 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

December 2005 Awards

X-Micro mini DisGo Portable Storage Device

MP3 Players and Multimedia Centers Awards

A player or a center can be honored with the Original Design award, in case it:

• Possesses unique functionality for these days
• Either contributes something revolutionary new to the market, or is an absolutely new device on the market
• Provides the outstanding quality of multimedia content playback
• Demonstrates a model of design (by its appearance, compact size or ergonomics)
• Other things that are not listed here

December 2005 Awards

Orient DHH100 MP3/WMA/HDD player

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

December 2005 Awards

VideoMate X800 from Compro Technology

HDD Controllers Awards

HDD controller (SCSI, SATA, SAS, etc) may be awarded with Original Design, if this model...

• Possesses unique functionality for these days to connect hard disk drives and form RAIDs
• Offers something principally new on the market
• Is convenient to install, configure, and use
• Other things that are not listed here

December 2005 Awards

Adaptec Serial ATA RAID 21610SA

Projectors Awards

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

• Original exterior^*
  • 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.

December 2005 Awards

Sony VPL-CX20 Multimedia LCD Projector — unusual case design and a number of peculiarities

Cooling Systems Awards

A cooling system (cooler) - air, water, based on heat pipes, or any other similar device or a set of devices can be awarded with Original Design in case it...

• Efficiently copes with its main task — cooling
• Has an original design
• Possesses unique functionality for these days
• Possesses outstanding ergonomic characteristics (including a noise level), which do not damage its functionality
• Other things that are not listed here

December 2005 Awards

Scythe Shogun

Zalman CNPS9500 LED

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.

TV Tuner and Multimedia Video Card Awards

TV-tuner or a multimedia video card can be selected for the Excellent Package award based on these criteria:

• Original package (retail)
• Homeware with unique functionality
• Rich set of extra software
• Souvenirs or useful/nice knick-knacks in the package
• Other things that are not listed here

December 2005 Awards

Pinnacle PCTV 110i TV- and FM-tuner

VideoMate X800 from Compro Technology

VideoMate X500 from Compro Technology

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

Write a comment below. No registration needed!