2016 in review: Who dominated the CHIP leaderboards ten years ago?

There are a lot of nostalgic throwbacks to 2016, which is now ten years ago, on social media. And not without good reason. After all, the year not only celebrates an anniversary, but also lets Generation Z in particular reminisce about blissful memories.

For many, it is at least a seemingly carefree time long before the hype and frustration surrounding artificial intelligence, TikTok or adult life in general: just do a few bottle flips, pocket monsters in Pokémon Go catch, send pictures on Snapchat and listen to artists like Twenty One Pilots on a loop. Splendid.

These were the CHIP test winners from 2016

At the beginning of 2026, Apple will dominate ours with the iPhone 17 Pro Max and its outstanding battery life Smartphone leaderboard. But ten years ago a major competitor from China was still at the top: Das Huawei Mate 9 (test). Even before Huawei smartphones largely disappeared from public awareness due to the withdrawal of Google services and 5G mobile communications, the Mate 9 scored points with brisk performance, a 5.9-inch display and a high-quality dual camera from Leica. This relied on a combination of a 20-megapixel black-and-white lens and a 12-megapixel color camera for vivid, if somewhat lacking in detail, images.

There seemed to be less movement our tablet best list. Because where the current model of the 11-inch Apple iPad Pro sits today, a 9.7-inch predecessor was presented in 2016. Of course, a lot has changed between the two generations, but for the time, the iPad Pro came out on top in the test with its A9X chip, two GB of RAM, LTE mobile communications and an internet runtime of five hours. How good that Apple is not the only one who has made significant developments here and can now score points with around 13.5 hours of usage time, the fast M5 chip at Mac level, FaceID and a smooth 120 Hertz OLED display. Nevertheless: The iPad Pro was already in our experts’ favor in 2016 – albeit closely followed by the Huawei MediaPad X2. Samsung was only able to really establish itself as a serious competitor in tablets in the following years.

In the area of Smartwatches Apple was also able to defend its top position from 2016. Where once the Apple Watch Series 2 (test) was at the top, there is now the (significantly more expensive) Apple Watch Ultra 3. In mid-December 2016, the first AirPods also made the now common plug design socially acceptable, although they were rarely able to assert themselves against their competitors in our tests. Our favorite Bluetooth headphones at that time it was AKG Y50BT (test). However, the Austrian manufacturer was taken over by Samsung and closed just a year later. The former test winner now leaves the field to brands like JBL, Bose and Sony.

Google Pixel, Alexa and the Galaxy Note dominated 2016

Aside from the test winners, 2016 still had a lot of exciting technology to offer. These include the first ones Google Pixel smartphoneswhich were released in October 2016 and have now grown into an indispensable fixture on the mobile phone market. The Oculus Rift and PlayStation VR brought virtual reality into living rooms, while thanks to “Pokémon Go,” AR (augmented reality) was also on everyone’s lips for the first time.

Also unforgettable: The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 spontaneously ignited and was also banned from airplanes in the process. At the time, this significantly damaged the South Koreans’ reputation, even though the more compact Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge was launched as one of the best Android smartphones.

The iPhone 7 also had a home button. This disappeared with the iPhone X in 2017. In addition, Amazon Echo conquered German households for the first time with the smart Alexa and the MacBook Pro was equipped with the now obsolete “Touch Bar” between the keyboard and display.

Still not enough of the nostalgic trip to 2016? No problem. We have in our CHIP.Chat podcast looked into the past in detail. You can now listen to why 2016 had such an impact on us outside of Pokémon Go, wherever podcasts are available.