Windows and Nokia

Our colleagues from Xataka, the blog from which we were born here at XatakaWindows, celebrate their technological "Oscar" awards every year, where they review all the gadgets and toys that have been appearing.

Our readers – who form a passionate community – vote for what they consider to be the best or most relevant, being a group with a great depth of knowledge about current technology , who have powerful arguments to defend their opinions and who, faithful to the Xataka spirit, “don't marry anyone”.

In addition, and to add an even higher level of quality, a group of juries also acts in the selection of the candidacies and the awards; and among which there are representatives of the highest level of large companies, communities, currents and sources of information of our national panorama.

This way you can put in its fair value that the prize for the best innovation of the year has been won by the new Redmon operating system, Windows 8 , with mention of the jury to his bet that has been very convincing to the users; and that the community prize has been awarded to the Lumia 920, accompanied by the Samsung Galaxy III and the Nexus 4, as the most valued devices.

Windows 8, the well-deserved prize for a risky bet

In XatakaWindows we had the new Redmond Operating System as a "leitmotif" for our birth as a blog for the Xataka community, and for this reason we have closely followed it.

Thus, although there is still much to discover, we can consider it as an old acquaintance for our readers. And yet we must not forget that it really just came out, it has completed its first month on the market with impressive figures, but with serious distribution problems in our Country that became clear with the announcement that Surface will not arrive in Spain until a second wave.

It is also important to point out that it has been a very risky bet that, contrary to what was feared in the most “supergeek” circles, has received a warm welcome by end users, where touch devices are within the reach of the general public. And it can be foreseen, without a doubt, that when we are flooded with tablets, hybrids and the more than 1,500 "paratos" that are already certified, the response in favor will be even greater.

That is why it is especially interesting that the more than 30,000 voters and the jury have considered the best innovation of the year 2012 to an Operating System, making it clear that the quality and objective of the bet has been achieved.

Among the reasons that I believe have led to Redmond receiving this award, I would highlight the following:

• Unifying the user experience beyond the device type division, focusing more on Personal Computing, which is Being able to develop your iteration in the Information Society in a similar way on any device such as consoles, smartphones, tablets, laptops, desktop computers, and combinations of all of them.

• The revolution that has involved hardware manufacturers who finally see a platform on which to innovate in a stagnant and stagnant market. And that it has produced a physical variety of devices and solutions not seen since the days of 8-bit computers.

• The touch paradigm of ModernUI, and the unexpected (for the writer of these lines) fusion with the keyboard + mouse desktop paradigm , creating a unique way of interacting with our PCs, in the sense of Personal Computing.

• Giving the user the power to decide when and how much to switch from one paradigm to the other Allowing situations like having a hybrid where working on Desktop, in ModernUI, in Touch Desktop, in Modern UI with a mouse or, unthinkable for any other Operating System, being able to operate a server machine with a Windows 2012 Server with your fingers.

In addition to decisions not related to technology that have marked the right path, such as the ease of migration from previous operating systems; better performance on older hardware, even beating outdated Windows XP on machines from back then; the reduction to two and a half versions that can be purchased, avoiding the confusion of Windows 7; and the tremendous, deep and expensive campaign, since September 2010, for the generation of information and content around Windows 8.

For all this, the award is more than deserved. And now to improve and get that the manufacturers bring the new “toys” to our hands.

Lumia 920, when you are so good there is no discussion possible

With this promotion, hard not to win

Lumia 920, has achieved what seemed impossible. Win a recognition award from the Xataka Community of readers as one of the products to highlight in 2012, without being available on the market until at least December 5.

In addition, and for greater value, the prize has been awarded along with other SmartPhones such as the Galaxy III and the Nexus 7. Two heavyweights that are on the shelves of the operators, and that have competed with a 920 that has been shown to a lucky few and that, even so, has convinced with its quality of both hardware, possibly the best on the market today, and software.

With a brand-new, brand-new Windows Phone 8 taking off with tens of thousands of legacy apps from Windows Phone 7.x, and to general applause from the community of developers since, from the point of view of building applications, it is very easy to create software that works on a mobile, a Tablet RT or a Windows 8 PRO.

Those of us who have been able to try and tinker with it, and with its younger brother the 820, can undoubtedly assure that we find ourselves with a "brown beast" in which the fluidity of movements stands out, with a Windows Phone 8 powerful, stable and extremely easy to use, sharing the same user experience as the previous version, and which has amazing multimedia capabilities Making us forget the "deception" of the presentation of the phone in September, since the static and moving image quality is up to expectations, which was a lot.

Nokia, also has been rewarded for continuing to push the bet to unseat Apple and Samsung in their high-end devices, risking in a different, unique, quality and exclusive bet. And, rising from the ashes caused by the “fiasco” of the premature obsolescence of Windows Phone 7.xx, it paves the way for all the other manufacturers that are announcing their new Windows Phone 8 mobiles, such as HTC, Huawei, etc.

Xataka 2012 is dead, long live Xataka 2013

But at the Xataka awards there have been other big winners, and there have also been surprises. Some are unexpected, such as the fact that an Acer S7 wins in laptops and a Nexus 7 in tablets, leaving the iPad and MacBook in the background, while the best desktop computer is iMac2012 against the brown beast of the Mountain Xtreme.

Let's hope that in the next Xataka Awards 2013, we will see at the top those machines that we will already have in our hands and, the best, that are yet to come.

In Xataka | We already have winners of the Xataka Awards 2012, Special Xataka Awards 2012