It’s that time of the year again where we pick the best products of the year. We’ve seen a whole bunch of gadgets and gizmos across all ranges, but only a few can truly be the best of the best. Sure, perfection is impossible but in this case, it’s probably the closest we’ve ever gotten to it. Without further ado, let’s get right into the Pokde Awards for Best Products of 2024.
Smartphones
Best Smartphone Display 2024
We’ve seen a rather interesting trend this year of smartphone screens getting brighter and brighter as we went through the year. We thought 2,000 nits peak was plenty and then we had one with 6,000 nits peak which is insanely bright. To some degree, it matters because, apart from making it easier to see, it can make colors really pop out, especially when HDR is in play.
With that being said however, brightness isn’t necessarily everything. We did see a whole chunk of smartphones with excellent displays across multiple brands but for us, one truly stood out above the rest. For starters, it’s a monstrous 2K+ 6.8-inch AMOLED display with adaptive refresh rate going from 1Hz to 120Hz, with the brightness now going even higher at 2,600 nits peak.
At first glance, this might not sound too different from other flagships but what really nailed it was Corning’s Gorilla Glass Armor. Apart from improved durability, it reduces reflections by up to 75%, resulting in much less glare and making it easier to view, which is especially noticeable in broad daylight. It doesn’t have to be that bright and visibility is easily above the rest. And that smartphone is none other than the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.
Winner: Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra
If you’re interested to get one for yourself, click right here.
Best Value Smartphone 2024
While flagships are typically what catches people’s eyes, there are a bunch of us who would rather not spend too much on a smartphone. This doesn’t necessarily limit us to entry-level devices but we would want to get the most out of the money spent. Of course, having a good design on top of it will be a huge bonus but ultimately, we’re focusing on value for money.
Now imagine this; there’s a smartphone that can perform about 90% as good as a mainstream flagship smartphone, but you pay about 50% less. Sounds hard to believe, isn’t it? But that’s the thing with this particular smartphone that we’re choosing. Powered by the MediaTek Dimensity 9300+ chip, it may lack a bit of GPU firepower compared to Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 devices but in a number of use cases, it managed to outperform Qualcomm’s flagship chips, likely due to better thermal and energy efficiency.
Apart from that, it has a 6.67-inch AMOLED display with 144Hz refresh rate and 4,000 nits of peak brightness. It also has a triple-camera setup consisting of a 50MP f/1.6 wide angle lens, 50MP f/2.0 telephoto lens with 2.6x optical zoom, and 12M f/2.2 ultrawide lens, complete with the Leica treatment. From what we’ve tested, it can take really good shots, easily on par with flagships double its price. They’re didn’t skimp out on durability either as it has IP68 dust and water resistance rating. Starting from a very affordable price of RM2,599, this is none other than the Xiaomi 14T Pro.
Winner: Xiaomi 14T Pro
If you’re interested to get one for yourself, click right here.
Best Smartphone Camera 2024
Cameras in smartphones have come a long way from producing those ugly, pixelated mess to being able to produce good results in low light today. It keeps getting better every year and 2024 is no exception as we saw quite a bit of innovations in this space alone. While there are a good number of smartphones that can qualify for this award, only one managed to keep our eyes glued to it.
Picture this; 50MP quadruple camera system consisting of an f/1.8 122˚ ultrawide lens, an f/1.8 telephoto lens with 3.2x optical zoom, Dual Pixel PDAF and OIS, an f/2.5 periscope telephoto lens with 5x optical zoom, Dual Pixel PDAF and OIS, and a wide angle camera with f/1.6 to f/4.0 variable aperture, multi-directional PDAF as well as OIS. The variable aperture alone gives you so much versatility in how you want your shots to look authentically on a hardware level whereas others rely on software, resulting in a more artificial look.
To emphasize the brand’s trust in its camera capabilities, they even released an official Photography Kit, which merges a compact powerbank, leather case, and a camera grip complete with DSLR-like controls in a single product. In case you still have no idea which smartphone we’re talking about, it’s the top-of-the-line Xiaomi 14 Ultra.
Winner: Xiaomi 14 Ultra
If you’re interested to get one for yourself, click right here.
Best Base Model Flagship Smartphone 2024
Pretty much every smartphone brand has divided their flagship into 2 to 4 devices in a single series. While all eyes are on the Ultras and Pro Maxes of the world, the base model isn’t anything to scoff at. Usually, you get most of what the highest end models offer but in a smaller, more affordable package. Interestingly, 2024 seems to be the year that almost every brand put in extra effort in their base model flagships compared to previous years.
For our pick, we feel like it’s most overlooked smartphone of 2024 as it got overshadowed by its pricier siblings after trying out the entire lineup, we had a renewed respect for the base model. Good performance, good battery life, excellent display, rich stereo speakers, solid build quality, satisfying camera performance, lengthy software support guaranteed, it practically has everything you need in a flagship smartphone and it’s widely regarded as easy to use for all ages.
It’s only missing some luxury features that you can easily live without, like 120Hz refresh rate for example. This device is none other than the Apple iPhone 16.
Winner: iPhone 16
If you’re interested to get one for yourself, click right here.
Best Foldable Smartphone 2024
Foldable smartphones are still seen as a luxury given the exorbitant prices, unless you’re focusing solely on the flip-style ones. Many consumers are still worried about its longevity as they are typical seen as more fragile but we’ve seen significant improvements in this area this year as well as we’re getting IP ratings closer to traditional smartphones, with IPX8 being the common rating while only one brand managed to include some level of dust resistance.
One thing’s for sure, using a foldable isn’t exactly the same as a traditional one and more often than not, we would still like to retain the ability to use it like the latter without missing out. Our pick managed to do that, and they managed to do it so well too. It has a large 120Hz 7.92-inch LTPO AMOLED screen and a 120Hz 6.43-inch LTPO OLED cover display, both of which are very similar in quality and the latter doesn’t have an oddly narrow screen. They also somehow managed to make it as thin as traditional smartphones at 9.2mm when folded.
Furthermore, you get a proper triple-camera setup akin to traditional flagships; 50MPS f/1.6 wide angle lens with PDAF and OIS, 50MP f/3.0 periscope telephoto lens with 3.5x optical zoom, PDAF and OIS, and a 40MP f/2.2 112˚ ultrawide lens with AF. They also managed to fit in a healthy 5,150mAh battery and include fast charging support; up to 66W wired and up to 50W wireless. It’s also powered by the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 chip, ensuring adequate firepower for all tasks and games. Lo and behold, the HONOR Magic V3.
Winner: HONOR Magic V3
If you’re interested to get one for yourself, click right here.
Best Smartphone Battery Life 2024
This is the most straightforward award among all our picks this year. It’s just a matter of which smartphone managed to outlast every other device out there this year. While big battery capacities will help, having a smartphone with a bigger capacity does not necessarily equate to longer battery life.
For years, this particular segment has been dominated by gaming phones as they typically come with the largest battery capacities, about 6,000mAh, but regular smartphones have also reached this figure and more as of late. In the case of our pick, it has a 6,000mAh silicon carbon battery and lasted a whopping 17 hours and 8 minutes in our endurance test. It is the vivo X200 Pro.
Winner: vivo X200 Pro
If you’re interested to get one for yourself, click right here.
Best Smartphone Overall 2024
And for our last pick, this is arguably the hardest one as we had a handful of devices that came really close. For this, it’s not about having one or two aspects that make it better than every other device but rather, it gives you the best experience on an overall level compared to other smartphones. For example, one device might have the fastest performance but if everything else is below par, what’s the point?
In the case of our pick, it has good CPU and GPU performance, comical levels of durability, faux leather finish that eliminates the need for protective cases, excellent display, immersive stereo speakers, satisfying camera performance, the complete connectivity package with IR Blaster and 5G support, and decent battery life. It may lag behind other Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 devices but it’s also the most thermally-efficient one, resulting in the most consistent, stable performance.
For this year, the popular saying “jack of all trades, master of none” fits this smartphone like a glove, and that might sound a little negative but remember that the second half of that saying is “but oftentimes better than a master of one”. Without further ado, our pick for best smartphone overall of 2024 is none other than the HONOR Magic6 Pro.
Winner: HONOR Magic6 Pro
If you’re interested to get one for yourself, click right here.
Laptops
Best Mainstream Laptop 2024
If you have a reasonable amount of budget for a new laptop today, what will be the best choice? We defined ‘mainstream’ as laptops that are priced RM5,000 or below, and here we evaluate the laptop that provides the best overall experience. The criterion includes metrics such as general usage, media consumption, battery life, and quirks, if any.
All these boils down to one answer: the ASUS Vivobook S 14 OLED (S5406). While this laptop is not packing the latest Intel processor at the time we tested it, we think that may be a small blessing in disguise – the Intel Core Ultra 155H provides solid amounts of performance in both single-core and multi-core aspects, while the onboard GPU provides respectable performance for light gaming sessions.
Elsewhere, the laptop aced many aspects: display, speakers, keyboard, design, and even battery life; there’s very little we can pick on this laptop and we can confidently say that it has very little compromise getting in the way of clinching this coveted award this year.
Winner: ASUS Vivobook S 14 OLED (S5406)
Read our review of this laptop right here.
Best Productivity Laptop 2024
Most of us rely on our laptops when it comes to getting work done, and this is especially true for businesspeople, and designing a laptop catering to this group has its set of challenges. How do you balance between performance and portability? Is it repairable or easy to maintain during normal operations? Any extra features that allows users to be more productive?
Hence, we elected the ASUS ExpertBook P5 (P5405) as the winner of this category: the laptop puts focus on getting the basics done right – impressive battery endurance, great performance on general use, and one of the genuine use cases of AI that isn’t just all marketing hype in search of a problem to solve – real-time transcription capabilities.
For a business laptop, we were impressed with other aspects as well. Speakers are loud and very well-tuned by content consumption standards, and there’s even macro keys that you don’t even see on gaming laptops most of the time. In essence, this ExpertBook is pretty much what a productivity laptop done right looks like.
Winner: ASUS ExpertBook P5 (P5405)
Want to read our verdict on the Expertbook? Just click on this text.
Best Value Gaming Laptop 2024
Gaming laptops comes in all sorts of price points, but the most popular is of course the budget-oriented ones. They usually offer more power for the money, which makes it a solid choice for when you need a high-performance laptop regardless of your goal, be it work or play.
While keeping that in mind, one aspect we appreciate when it comes to gaming laptops is the versatility. This means having an assortment of I/O ports that can connect to all kinds of gadgets and devices to expand our battlestation fleet, or if you’re out and about – the ability to still get work done on the go with all the power available on tap.
For that, the Acer Predator Helios Neo 16, specifically the Intel Core i5-14500HX paired with NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4050 Laptop GPU, offers the optimal balance in terms of specs. It’s not just about the firepower – the display and the versatility aspect we just mentioned plays a part in deciding what’s best in this category, and we believe the Helios fits the bill.
Winner: Acer Predator Helios Neo 16 (PHN16-72)
Best Laptop Overall 2024
Finally, the biggest accolade we are giving for the laptops. This is genuinely one of the best laptops we’ve ever got our hands on and its hardly believable that just two years ago the Windows laptop market was plagued with all kinds of shortcomings when comparing against the then-newfangled shiny toy over at the Apple camp, the ARM-powered MacBooks with class-leading performance and battery life to boot.
Since then, the Windows camp has very much leveled the playing field, and in some ways we’d argue it has even surpassed the Cupertino-designed laptops. The AMD-powered ASUS Zenbook S 16 (UM5606) is the laptop that we think deserves to be the king of the Windows laptop hill, for the many aspects that it has excelled and redefined what a premium laptop should look and should be.
The AMD Ryzen AI 9 HX 370 processor delivers impressive performance, all while the laptop cools it while maintaining virtual silence; moreover, display looks great, speakers sound great, keyboard types great, and the design is also great (and practical, thanks to its new smudge-resistant Ceraluminum material). All in all, an extremely impressive laptop – can 2025 laptops top this one?
Winner: ASUS Zenbook S 16 (UM5606)
Here’s our verdict that ultimately awarded the Zenbook S 16 our biggest accolade of the year.
Monitors
Best Value Gaming Monitor 2024
Monitor prices have came down considerably in recent times, and you don’t have to splurge four digits these days to get yourself a QHD-capable gaming monitor. Case in point: the Cooler Master GM27-CQS. This monitor isn’t going to be perfect for competitive gamers who wants perfect pixel response times and all the features to gain any competitive advantage; instead, it’s for those who wants a reasonably-priced option that can deliver high refresh rate, with some pretty robust color adjustments to boot.
With gamers now starting to move into QHD territory, it’s only time that monitors like this one is eventually gets democratized to the masses – and we do think this one from Cooler Master is quite a decent option for those who wants to experience sharper visuals and smoother motions without breaking the bank.
Winner: Cooler Master GM27-CQS
Here’s our review of this Cooler Master gaming monitor.
Best OLED Monitor 2024
QD-OLED is one heck of a beast when it comes to display technologies: you get the benefits of OLED, plus all the more colors and brightness thanks to the atomic magic of quantum dots. It’s probably one of the best display technologies you can get on a display panel today, and MSI’s MAG 321UPX QD-OLED monitor is a good representation of the premium powerhouse OLED for gamers.
Just reading off the specs is probably a good indication what this monitor is all about: 4K resolution, 240Hz refresh rate, near-instant pixel response time, 99% DCI-P3 with Delta-E less than 2, HDR capability, console 4K 120Hz support, plus MSI’s own OLED panel protection features that help this monitor last through the years to come. That’s probably still missing out some small details too, but to distill it down – this is one of the best monitors you can buy today, if you can afford it of course.
Winner: MSI MAG 321UPX QD-OLED
Best Home Productivity Monitor 2024
For this category, it’s practicality first: in other words, function over form. A practical monitor is always a good one, and the better it gets if there are some extra features that better achieves the goal. For this one, we have the perfect edge for the modern-day craftsman, the MSI PRO MP251 E2 monitor – we’d argue that this monitor has got both function and form sorted pretty neatly,
This 24.5-inch monitor is more than just being a bare display panel: MSI has given it some special abilities to connect to mini PCs (can be mounted at the back) so you can power on both devices at the same time; it’s also got legacy VGA support for older devices as well. As a neat bonus, this monitor delivers 120Hz refresh rate, which isn’t quite as common as we thought when it comes to regular PC displays, so good job on that one MSI.
Winner: MSI PRO MP251 E2
Best Creator Monitor 2024
One thing we do like about the ASUS ProArt Display 5K PA27JCV is the positioning of this product – and in the review, we agree: this monitor aims to provide a 5K-capable monitor at a cheaper price point, and it’s pretty rare to find one of these right now, much less at relatively affordable prices. You might argue that 4K is a lot cheaper and there are a lot more options to choose from, but you can’t beat the sheer amount of pixels this monitor can offer.
Besides, being a ProArt monitor means it’s still got the chops when it comes to color accuracy, and you get a flurry of features that makes it a pretty capable monitor for getting work done while keeping everything as convenient as possible. Sure, Apple got its own 5K monitor, but unless you also owns an Apple device to use it (for the sake of feature integration that Cupertino prides itself with), it’s safe to say the PA27JCV is the more versatile option for everyone else.
Winner: ASUS ProArt Display 5K PA27JCV
Thanks you to all of our readers for supporting us this year. Be sure to stay tuned for a whole new year of gadgets and gizmos, right here on Pokde.NET.
