Computex kicks off with design awards

Asia's largest computer and electronics show kicked off today with its design awards, giving prizes to the best new and coming products from a range of manufacturers.

Among the products honoured at the IF Design awards at Computex Taipei 2011 were two laptops and a desktop 'all-in-one' computer from Acer, a smartphone and a digital interactive pen from Avermedia.

The Acer Aspire Ethos 8951G laptop was praised for its edge-to-edge screen and high-quality speakers, while the same company's Revo 100 media computer was also commended.

Two ebook readers from Hanvon Technology were given prizes: the Wisereader E920 has a high-resolution 200dpi e-ink screen and a Freescale i.MX508 processor, while the A4-sized Color Wisereader uses a colour LCD screen. Another company, Gajah International, was awarded certificates for its Oaxis BK7004 and Oaxis BK7007 colour ebook readers, which both use LCD screens.

An innovative Horn Speaker for the iPhone (pictured), from Fruitshop International, uses its shape to amplify the phone's sound, so no external power is required.

The Viewsonic products, pictured above, are a 4in phone running the Android operating system and a 7in tablet, the Viewpad 7x, which runs the latest Android 3 operating system and has a dual-core Nvidia processor.

Another product on show was the G1.Assassin gaming motherboard from component maker Gigabyte (pictured below), which the company says is modelled on weapons including pistols, rifles and ammunition clips.

The show proper begins tomorrow and we'll have full coverage - see our Computex Taipei 2011 page for all the latest stories from Taipei.