iXBT.com Editors' Awards

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.

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

March 2005 Awards

MP3/HDD/WMA player X-Micro MusePod

MSI Mega View 561 multimedia player

MSI MEGA Player 521 MP3/WMA sports player

[ Archive of the awarded products ]

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.

March 2005 Awards

ASUS Extreme AX800XL 256MB

Gigabyte RADEON X800 256MB PCI-E

HIS RADEON X800 XL IceQ II Turbo 256MB

HIS RADEON X850 XT IceQ II Turbo 256MB

HIS RADEON X850 XT Platinum IceQ II 256MB

[ Archive of the awarded products ]

Motherboards Awards

A motherboard gets the Original Design award for one or a combination of the following design features:

Passive (or active, but only if necessary!) cooling system for overheated motherboard elements
Indication system for computer failures at startup
Good PCB layout, which does not hamper assemblage and upgrade
on-board buttons to power on or restart a computer, to reset CMOS, etc. — any feature that facilitates express-tests or repairs
other things

We award only useful elements of design in our opinion: so, a stylish (or a monstrous) chipset cooler cannot be considered useful, if this chipset does not require mandatory active cooling. And the attractive design will not be awarded, if it offers no other advantages except for its good looks.

Of course, the above list does not contain all possible options (a lot of things cannot be foreseen at all) for a motherboard to get the award. Read the reviews of awarded models to find out the details and perhaps get acquainted with innovations on the market.

March 2005 Awards

ASRock K8 Combo-Z Motherboard for AMD Socket 754/939

ASRock K8Upgrade-760GX Motherboard for AMD Socket 754/939

[ Archive of the awarded products ]

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

March 2005 Awards

Behold TV 409 FM (Additional features in sound operations and durable ceramic capacitors)

[ Archive of the awarded products ]

Digital Cameras Awards

A digital camera can be honored with the Original Design award under the following conditions:

Its matrix and lens are manufactured by the companies, whose names are mentioned on the camera housing
This camera is the first to use at least one of the mentioned above design elements
Real or potential camera features distinguish it from the previously manufactured products
Other things that are not listed here

March 2005 Awards

OLYMPUS E-300 for the viewfinder design.

[ Archive of the awarded products ]

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.

MP3 Players and Multimedia Centers Awards

A player or a media center can get the Excellent Package award if it has the following differences from competing products:

Original box
Homeware with unique functionality
Additional software included into the bundle
The bundle makes it very convenient to use the device without buying additional components
Souvenirs or useful/nice knick-knacks in the package
Other things that are not listed here

March 2005 Awards

MSI Mega View 561 multimedia player

MSI MEGA Player 521 MP3/WMA sports player

[ Archive of the awarded products ]

3D Video Cards Awards

A video card 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: