T3 Awards 2022: all the Headline award winners announced

All this week T3 has been announcing the celebrated winners of the T3 Awards 2022. Over 100 categories of awards have been adjudicated this year, making 2022 the biggest T3 Awards ever.

And now, finally, we come to the grand unveiling of the T3 Awards 2022 Headline Awards. These are the most celebrated of all awards categories and include Brand Of The Year, Retailer Of The Year, Best Gadget Under £100/$100, Tech Innovation Award, Sustainability Award and, the big one, Gadget Of The Year.

Competition for these headline award categories was incredibly fierce this year, making the T3 Awards 2022 judges' job of selecting overall winners really tough. But select winners they did and here they are – congratulations to all the Headline Award winners!

Gadget Of The Year

Nintendo Switch OLED

The Switch was a marvel; the Switch OLED is entirely more marvellous. Nintendo’s revised model is an upgrade that acknowledges and embraces the fact that the does-it-all Switch has attracted the same kind of broad audience that flocked to the Wii – and this time, Nintendo has everyone’s back, hardcore or not.

The OLED screen is a joy to behold, bigger and (naturally) brighter than before, and the battery is more than big enough to keep up with the increased demands of self-emissive pixels. The redesigned dock, now with an Ethernet port, gives serious gamers the chance to compete online at full speed; the much-improved kickstand makes casual out-and-about gaming a far less tenuous experience. There’s more storage, stronger speakers, and even secretly upgraded joycons that do more to reduce the potential impact of controller drift.

The Switch OLED is an impeccable package, but it’s not just the console that wins here: it’s the games. In an era where other consoles seem to struggle to even get a AAA title to market, let alone manufacture enough hardware for folks to play them, the Switch OLED gets to lean on the finest range of first- party games we’ve seen.

All that, and the Switch OLED has everything that made the Switch great in the first place: portability, dockability, flexibility. This is the best console Nintendo has ever made. Even given the wobbly trajectory of Nintendo’s legacy consoles that’s an obscenely high mark to reach.

Gadget Of The Year shortlist

Sky Glass, Samsung Galaxy S22 Ultra, iPhone 13 Pro, LG C2, Sonos Beam, Samsung Galaxy Watch 4, Nintendo Switch OLED, Garmin Fenix 7X, Dyson V15 Detect

Best Gadget Under £100/$100

Thermapen One

Take the guessing out of food temperatures with this fine (and affordable) kitchen gadget: it’s accurate, it’s brilliantly engineered and designed, and it couldn’t be any easier to use. Stick this into whatever you’re cooking up and you’ll get its temperature back in a second or less, with the device able to measure a range from -19.9°C to 119.9°C (and with an accuracy level of ±0.3°C, not too shabby at all).

If you’re still not convinced, the Thermapen One is waterproof and really simple to clean, it comes with a guarantee that’s good for five years, and it has a replaceable battery that lasts 2,000 hours. Oh, and did we mention it costs (significantly) less than £100/$100?

Best Gadget Under £100/$100 shortlist

Thermapen One, Sony WF-C500, Nextbase 222 Dash Cam, Fitbit Ace 3, Logitech Lift, Apple HomePod mini, Amazon Echo (4th gen),  Instant Vortex Mini, Apple HomePod mini, Roku Streambar, Cougar Airblader mouse, Thousand helmet, Bosch Ixo

 Brand Of The Year

Apple

Apple’s phones, tablets and watches dominate. Its about-face on the creative desktop – culminating in the frankly incredible Mac Studio – has been more of a success than we could even have imagined. The content of Apple TV+ has earned the company a best picture Oscar (for the feel-good drama CODA). Apple is a powerhouse.

Everything tangible the company has produced this year, even if not a radical redesign like the new iMac, feels like a leaps-and-bounds upgrade. Apple’s increased focus on the guts of its gadgets – and their environmental impact – has made it stronger: by taking control of chip design, the Cupertino company has forged a path for its products like no other company before it. The world knows Apple, and knows what it can do.

Brand Of The Year shortlist

OPPO, Dyson, Apple, Samsung, LG, Sky, Peloton, Tesla

Retailer Of The Year (UK)

Pure Electric

A three-pronged attack from Pure Electric secures it a well-deserved win here. One, it produces some of the finest electric bikes and scooters on the market, like the super-practical Pure Free City step-through bike and our top electric scooter, the Pure Air Pro LR. Two, its high-street stores do more to get affordable, safe and technologically advanced electric personal transport – from its own brand and others – underneath potential riders than any other. Thirdly, company founder Adam Norris has actively campaigned to get the UK’s archaic laws on electric scooters changed, an effort that has just borne real fruit. Leading the charge of the next generation of city mobility is a tough task, but Pure Electric is doing it.

Retailer Of The Year (UK) shortlist

Amazon, Currys, John Lewis, Argos, Net A Porter/Mr Porter, Halfords, Pure Electric, AO.com, SportsShoes.com

Retailer Of The Year

Walmart

Walmart has always been a great place to find everything you need, including a wide range of tech from TVs and laptops to scooters and drones. This year though, it has been one of the most dependable ways to find tech’s most sought-after prize: the PlayStation 5. Its Walmart+ subscription offers exclusive and early access to a range of deals and holiday sales, as well as PS5 restocks. By paying the monthly subscription and logging on straight away, it was one of the few ways you could actually buy the PS5.

Retailer Of The Year shortlist

Amazon, Best Buy, Walmart, Home Depot, Abt Electronics, Adorama, B&H Photo, Target

Sustainability Award

Adidas

We’re all aware of the fragility of our planet and the need to do much more to protect it, so this year we’re honouring the efforts of Adidas in this area. The company is running initiatives including the development of products that use recycled materials and can be recycled themselves; vegan products; and products that eliminate plastic waste. What’s more, Adidas is encouraging many of its customers and partners to join it on this journey towards improved sustainability. There’s always more to do, but whether it’s sportswear made from plastic waste washed up on beaches or manufacturing processes that minimise water, chemical and energy use, Adidas is making several steps in the right direction. 

Sustainability Award shortlist

Adidas, Allbirds, Chrome Industries, Vodafone, Nespresso, Apple, Dell, Ecoegg, Finisterre, Vivobarefoot, Muc-Off

Tech Innovation Award

Apple Mac Studio

Apple really hasn’t been holding back with the development of its computers lately: the switch to the M1 chips has led to significant jumps in performance and battery life, and now the Mac Studio is here to showcase the very best desktop that Apple can dream up. It oozes high-end power, is packed with ports and features, and is beautifully designed – featuring a state-of-the-art and super-quiet cooling system, wrapped inside a compact and subtly curved design. Not for the first time, Apple has innovated in a product category that had grown stale and tired, and the Mac Studio is now the desktop computer of choice for creatives and power users who want the top hardware currently available.

Tech Innovation Award shortlist

Sky Glass, Samsung Galaxy Z Flip3 5G, Dyson Zone, Apple Mac Studio, Smeg Galileo OmniChef, Brompton T-Line, Samsung Neo QLED 8K