Readers' Choice Awards 2006

A year is a long time in home technology. The speed of innovation seems to accelerate with every passing year. But some things never change – particularly the virtues that Computeractive and its huge army of readers stand for: value for money, ease of use, respect for customers and practical benefit.

At the end of last year we asked you to select the companies, products and services that had impressed you according to these four simple values. The voting has closed, the count is complete and we can now tear open the virtual envelope and reveal the winners.

Some of the names here are very familiar, and featured heavily in last year’s awards. Consistency of product quality and service are always appreciated. We should note that NTL Telewest, which won the Broadband Provider award, is now called Virgin Media.

There were new categories too. We decided that last year’s Best Digital Media Player category should be split into best audio and video players. Another newcomer was an award for the best external storage company, and it was interesting that you voted in large numbers for providers of high-capacity external hard disks, rather than the handy but smaller USB keys and memory cards.

Editor's Choice – Company of the Year
Winner: Intel
Intel has done an awful lot to lower the cost of notebook computers in the past year, encouraging consumers to replace bulky desktops with smaller, lighter models that can be easily transported around. It’s now possible to get a good notebook computer for £500 – about half the cost of an equivalent-powered model just a few years ago.

Cheap is fine, but with Core 2 Duo Intel has provided real value for that lower cost. Other things, such as cheap flat-screen panels, have made notebooks more affordable. But Intel’s Core 2 Duo chips and other components have made it easier for any number of small manufacturers to turn out a good, small computer. That means the prospect of increased PC ownership, more and better models for libraries and schools and a boost for technology in the UK. If that isn’t worth our top award, we don’t know what is.

Runners-up: Devolo
Home networking is one thing, but nobody wants a house strewn with network cables. While Wifi solves this problem, many homes find that blackspots occur where signals will not reach. Riding to the rescue comes Homeplug, a standard for networking computers using the power sockets in your home.

The company that does Homeplug best is Devolo. Its products offer simple, fast networking, with a quick setup process that isn’t any more difficult than setting up a standard wired network. Devolo’s dLan products are also fast enough for streaming video across a network from one computer to another – or to a Slingbox, for that matter.