Diamonds are a Dabs’ Best Friend… (I’m sorry)

The stage was set and the tension could be cut with a knife at the 4^th Annual Diamond Awards held in the Manchester Hilton on Thursday night. Hundreds of delegates from some of the industry’s biggest names sat in anticipation, waiting to hear the results. But we’ll get to those later.

So close to Halloween, those lucky enough to attend (nominees only) were also treated to a spooky-themed dining area, complete with travelling Adams Family (Lurch looking rather unsteady on his stilts, it must be said) featuring a rather lascivious Morticia (Gomez didn’t seem to mind) who rather unnerved us Dabs lot. Our tables covered in little diamonds and Damien Hirst inspired skulls (unfortunately I don’t reckon they would have fetched the same price tag), it was a rather odd but welcome setting for one of the biggest and most prestigious award ceremonies in the electronics world.

After a champagne reception and a lovely three course (silver service might I add) meal, it was time to get on with the awards themselves.

All awards that follow were voted for by you, the customers, so if your horse won give yourself a nice little pat on the back.

Best Memory manufacturer – Kingston – eg. Kingston 8GB HyperX DDR3

Best Print manufacturer  – HP – eg. HP Officejet Pro 8000 Wireless (With free warranty)

Best Components manufacturer – Intel – eg. Intel Core i7 – 2600K

Best Networking manufacturer  – Cisco – eg. Cisco 1000Base-SX GBIC

Best Storage manufacturer  - Samsung – eg. Samsung 1.5TB Story Station

Best Software manufacturer  - Microsoft – eg. Microsoft Windows 7 Professional

Best Audio Visual manufacturer  - Epson – eg. Epson EH TW5900 HD/3D Ready Projector

Best Display manufacturer  - Samsung – eg. Samsung SyncMaster24″ Widescreen Monitor

Best Enterprise Storage manufacturer  - HP – eg. HP 36.4GB Hot Plug SAS SFF 15K

Best Unified Communications Product manufacturer  - Plantronics – eg. Plantronics GameCom 367 Headset

Best Laptop manufacturer  - Samsung – eg. Samsung RV150 Laptop

Best Desktop manufacturer  – HP – eg. HP P3300 Tower

Well done to one and all! Now where’s the Alka Seltzer?

Dabs