Reg Hardware Awards 2011

More than 28,500 votes were cast by Reg readers during December 2011 when we asked you all to name the best - and the worst - tech products of the year.

We asked for your thoughts on hardware and software in the Lifestyle, Mobile, Computing and Gaming categories, and we also wanted you to name and shame the products that you felt most warranted being awarded the unwished for Rusty Dodo Award.

In addition to a shortlist of potential award winners which reflected our choices, we also gave you the chance to make your own suggestions.

It was an interesting experiment, naming some worthy products we hadn't considered, highlighting some illogical dislikes and implausible favourites, and some downright dim entries.

No, Ted, you are not going to be chosen as Smartphone of the Year.

As another example, the Mobile category saw Nokia's Lumia 800 smartphone gaining positive votes to a degree far in excess of its share of the market. Ditto its operating system, Windows Phone 7, in the Smartphone OS of the Year award.

And, indeed, the various votes for Meego.

A fair few folk entered items in a spirit of 'I just bought this so it must be good', while others did so from a 'I just bought this and I hate it' perspective.

Then there was the twit who felt he needed to tell us: "Dunno much about cameras."

Best Content Service Provider? "None of them - they're all sharks," one wit responded.

Other suggestions were more sensible. The call for Lifestyle Rusty Dodos included: "Youview - for being so late it is DOA if it ever arrives."

Then there was the : "Anything by Linksys - relaunching the same product for the last few years."

And we can't ignore the "anything muppet related".

Here are some of our favourites:

"Apple iPhone all models and all Android Smartphones because they don't give a shit about privacy," suggested one tinfoil hat wearer.

"iPhone 4S, iPhone 4 was great, but iPhone 4S had a potential to be better and not disappoint so many people."

"Ubuntu 11.04 for the worst UI ever, utterly appalling at finding and keeping what you want where you want. Not just a steep learning curve but it is easier to learn mandarin than understand the logic of some of the changes."

"Any budget Tablet. They're awful. The lot of them."

"Any smartphone too big to fit in a pocket."

"My new coffee machine! Useless POS ;)"

"The MS ad where the kid creates a crappy PowerPoint for his dad."

"Anything capable of playing Justin Bieber CDs."

"Set {random - HP, RIM, Apple, Sony} plus {Tablet, Laptop, iPad, Gadget} = all fails"

And now, the winners…

Reg Hardware Awards 2011 Winners

Lifestyle

Home Entertainment Product of the Year

Samsung D8000

Runner-up: Humax HDR-FOX T2

Gadget of the Year

Kingston Technology HyperX SSD

Runner-up: Apple iPod Touch

Camera of the Year

Canon EOS 600D

Runner-up: Nikon D5100

Content Service Provider of the Year

Freeview HD

Runner-up: Sky

Mobile

Smartphone of the Year

Samsung Galaxy S II

Runner-up: Apple iPhone 4S

Smartphone OS of the Year

Android

Runner-up: iOS 5

Utterly Useful Mobile App of the Year

Apple Siri

Runner-up: Wolfram Alpha

Mobile Service Provider of the Year

Vodafone

Runner-up: T-Mobile

Computer

Laptop of the Year

Apple MacBook Air 13in

Runner-up: Dell Alienware M18x

Tablet of the Year

Apple iPad 2

Runner-up: Asus Eee Pad Transformer

Broadband Service Provider of the Year

Virgin Media

Runner-up: Be

Tech Retailer of the Year

Amazon

Runner-up: eBuyer

Gaming

Game of the Year

Portal 2

Runner-up: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Antique Code Show All-time Classic Award

Elite

Runner-up: Doom

iGamer Mobile Game of the Year

Minecraft

Runner-up: Infinity Blade

Developer of the Year

Bethesda

Runner-up: Rockstar

And now for the products that most got your goat last year...

Reg Hardware Awards 2011 Rusty Dodo Winners

Lifestyle Rusty Dodo

3DTV

Awarded the Rusty Dodo for the second year running, you guys really don't like 3D, according to your votes.

Mobile Rusty Dodo

Apple iPhone 4S

Yes, it polled well in the Smartphone of the Year, gaining a Silver, runner-up award, but Apple's latest handset was also the most disliked offering in the Mobile category.

Computing Rusty Dodo

RIM BlackBerry PlayBook

A clear 'winner' in the Computing category, the poor old PlayBook was also named frequently among the Lifestyle and Mobile Rusty Dodo award suggestions. If there's one product most deserving of this gong, in your opinion, its RIM's tablet.

Gaming Rusty Dodo

Duke Nukem Forever

So many years in the making and with so many false starts behind it, it DNF was destined to disappoint. But it could - should - have been a decent game, at least. You didn't think it was. ®