The following is the list of survey questions asked using Google Form for Lowyat.NET 2016 Community Choice Awards. Scroll to the bottom of this post to find out why this questionnaire is completed flawed and as a result the survey result is not at all representative of people’s choice. In other words, winning the award does not contain any value and the published result later can be extremely misleading.
Lowyat.NET 2016 Community Choice Awards!
*This is a required question
Part I: Smartphones
What is your choice for the best smartphone of 2016? *
- Samsung Galaxy S7 edge
- iPhone 7/7 Plus
- OnePlus 3/3T
- Google Pixel/Pixel XL
- Huawei P9/P9 Plus
- iPhone SE
- Moto Z
- HTC 10
- Xiaomi Mi Mix
- Huawei Mate 9/Mate 9 Pro
Which do you think is the best value for money smartphone of 2016? *
- OnePlus 3/3T
- honor 8
- Huawei P9
- Xiaomi Mi 5
- Xiaomi Redmi Note 3
Which 2016 smartphone had the best rear camera? *
- Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 edge
- iPhone 7/7 Plus
- Google Pixel/Pixel XL
- OnePlus 3/3T
- Huawei Mate 9/Mate 9 Pro
- HTC 10
Part II: Wearables, Ultrabooks, Gaming
Which is the best smartwatch of 2016? *
- Samsung Gear S3 Classic/Frontier
- Apple Watch Series 2
- Asus ZenWatch 3
Which is the best premium Ultrabook of 2016? *
- Dell XPS 13 (Kaby Lake refresh)
- HP Spectre 13
- Acer Swift 7
- Apple MacBook Pro 2016
- Asus ZenBook 3
- Lenovo ThinkPad X1 Yoga
Which 2016 gaming laptop offers the best value for money? *
- 2016 Illegear Z5
- Asus ROG Strix GL502
- MSI GE62VR
Which gaming peripheral brand released the best gaming products in 2016? *
- Razer
- Logitech G
- Steelseries
- Fnatic Gear
Part III: Malaysian Telcos!
Which is the best telco of 2016? *
- Celcom
- digi
- Maxis
- U Mobile
Which telco offered the best postpaid plan in 2016? *
- Celcom (FIRST Blue, Gold, Platinum)
- digi Postpaid (Postpaid 50, 80, 110)
- MaxisONE Plan (MaxisONE 98, 128, 158, 188)
- U Mobile (P50, P70, Hero P98)
Which new prepaid plan was the best in 2016? *
- Celcom Xpax Turbo
- Digi Prepaid LIVE
- Hotlink FAST
- U Mobile POWER
Which telco had the best LTE network in Malaysia in 2016? *
- Celcom
- digi
- Maxis
- U Mobile
Which local telco improved the most in 2016? *
- Celcom
- digi
- Maxis
- U Mobile
Part IV: Final Words
What is Your Choice for Story of the Year? *
- Pokemon Go. A phenomenon unlike any other.
- Samsung Galaxy Note 7. A fiery end to what should have been 2016’s best smartphone.
- Malaysian telcos are finally offering generous data quotas for postpaid plans. Finally!
Simple reason why this survey is flawed: flawed survey questionnaire design
All questions are marked as required and as a result no way for you to skip any question without answering in order to proceed till the end of the questionnaire and hit submit. However, are you sure you are knowledgeable in / have used / have tried all these devices / services? The possible scenario is people just choose whichever service they are using, or even worse just choose random choice for questions on gadget / service that they never used / never even know the existence for the sake of proceeding the survey till the end.
For example, “Which local telco improved the most in 2016?” gives us the feeling that the survey result will show which telco has improved most in 2016. But how does one know if a telco has improved more compared to the others? Unless this person has used all four operators (and not only that this person must also be the subscriber of both postpaid and prepaid plans) and know every well their previous and current service offering and upgrades else the voter is just voting cluelessly.…
Or maybe they just vote his / her current telco (let’s say no telco switch for the year) because he / she did receive some upgrade / freebies from the particular telco when the actual fact is all telcos has improved (more data, more / better / new services / upgrades etc). Let say if one feels that he / she just doesn’t know which one has improved a lot, then he / she has to randomly pick one for the sake of submitting the survey because one cannot proceed without answering any question.
At the end of the day, it is just a popularity contest and as such the wording of the survey questionnaire should have been more accurately reflecting it. Hopefully when Lowyat.NET publishes the result the survey methodology is clearly mentioned so that anyone with an understanding of how survey works can just ignore the result which is just, sorry to say, rubbish (GIGO - garbage in garbage out).