Press
IDG’S PC World Announces Winners Of The 2004 World Class Awards
06/02/2004
SAN FRANCISCO, CA – JUNE 2, 2004 – PC World, the most widely-read technology or business magazine, today unveiled the winners of its annual World Class Awards. The “Best of 2004” in the July issue features the finest products and services of the last year, from advanced digital cameras to workgroup printers, from the Alienware Aurora Extreme FX 53 to ZoneAlarm Pro 4.5. The issue will be on newsstands June 15, and the article is now available at http://find.pcworld.com/42892.
The 2004 Product of the Year is the AMD Athlon 64 FX processor series. Editors noted, “When you want top performance, the Athlon FX line delivers…” and they applauded the FX’s ability to let users “…upgrade to 64-bit operating systems and applications as they appear in the next few years.” This also marks the debut of the “Hall of Fame” category, created to recognize products that have consistently shown “World Class” qualities year after year. The inaugural recipient is the IBM ThinkPad series, praised for having “…innovative design, excellent reliability, and powerful features since 1992.” Additionally, Big Blue was commended for stellar notebook service.
The complete list of winners follows; editors made their selections based on exemplary usability, design, innovation, features, performance, and value from a reliable manufacturer. The honorees were selected after editors reviewed hundreds of products over the past 12 months.
2004 WORLD CLASS AWARD WINNERS
Category: Winner
Product of the Year: AMD Athlon 64 FX series
Software Newcomers of the Year: Apple iTunes Media Player
Apple iTunes Music Store
Hardware Newcomer of the Year: palmOne Treo 600
Hall of Fame: IBM ThinkPad series
COMPUTERS
Category: Winner
Best Performance PC: Alienware Aurora Extreme FX 53
Best General-Purpose PC: Dell Dimenson 4600
Best Specialty PC: Hush Technologies Hush ATX
Best Desktop Replacement Notebook: Toshiba Satellite P25
Best Ultraportable Notebook: IBM ThinkPad X40
Best Tablet PC: Toshiba Portégé M200
BARE NECESSITIES
Category: Winner
Best Input Device: Logitech diNovo Media Desktop
Best Router/Gateway: NETGEAR WGT624 108 MBPS Wireless Firewall Router
Best Operating System: Apple Mac OS X Panther 10.3
Best Utility Suite: V Communications SystemSuite 5
Best Stand-Alone Utility: Novatix ExplorerPlus
Best E-mail: Microsoft Office Outlook 2003
Best Web Browser: Opera 7.23
Best Search Engine: Google
Best Personal Finance Software: Microsoft Money 2004 Premium
Best Business Accounting Software: ACCPAC Simply Accounting 2004 Pro
PC World’s 2004 World Class Awards
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SECURITY
Category: Winner
Best Antivirus Software: Trend Micro PC-cillin Internet Security 2004
Best Firewall: Zone Labs ZoneAlarm Pro 4.5
Best Privacy Software: AT&T Privacy Bird
Best Spam Filter: Cloudmark SpamNet
Best Anti-Spyware Scanner: PepiMK Software Spybot Search & Destroy
STORAGE