Digit’s Zero1 Awards are given out to the best performing products of the year, in an effort to remind you of what you should consider buying – if you’re the type that has to have the absolute best products. It’s also our way of rewarding brands for putting in tonnes of research and development, and coming up with the best performing product. Sometimes this could be a product that’s been in the market for most of the year, and sometimes that could be a product that’s launched as late as November! In order to keep thing’s fair, we accept products that were launched in the 12-month period between Zero1 Awards. Thus, for this year, these are the very best products that were launched after December 1 2017, and on or before November 30 2018. Why such weird dates? Because we publish the awards on December 1 every year, and we’re not superhuman, we need time to test them. For the products launching closer to the end of the year, we get those ahead of time under embargo for this reason. And when we say “test them” we mean putting all of the products listed here through the wringer that is our comprehensive test process. Each and every category we cover has a rigorous test process that’s followed for each product, and then a winner is calculated. It’s almost the same test process as all the other reviews we do, except that it has no scores being awarded for features, or price.
This is unique, and nowhere else will you get a rundown of the best performing products of the year, because most others “review” products instead of testing them. This isn’t about the opinion of reviewers, this is about pure performance, and the ability of a product to just do the best job currently possible. So, for example, when you ask the question, “What’s the best performing gaming laptop in India?” you need to check out our Zero1 Award winner, because that’s the only place you will get this answer. There’s another reason why the Zero1 Awards is so important. Because we don’t look at price, but only pure performance, we get to showcase products that you might have heard about, but didn’t pay too much attention to because of budget restrictions. Yes, some have made the mistake of thinking this award only makes sense to rich kids with deep pockets, because all of the products here are usually expensive. That isn’t why we do it though. In fact, usually, a tech product that wins the Zero1 Award is considered the industry benchmark for the year. And what do brands love to do with benchmarks? Beat them of course. Think of the Zero1 Awards as a predictor of things to come in 2019. The new devices that launch in 2019 will have to better this benchmark, and not just compete in terms of performance, but also price! Remember to send us feedback at editor@digit.in
