Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas & Happy Holidays to all of our readers, your families and friends.
Here’s hoping that under your Christmas tree is packed with gadgets!
🙂
xmas
12 Gizmos for Christmas: #6 MP3 Player
MP3 players are again among the Geek’s top 12 Gadgets of Christmas and Apple’s iPod continues to outsell and rule this market. If you’re looking for our list to include Zune, SanDisk, Archos or Creative… you’ll be disappointed because they simply do not make the best seller list.
The bestselling iPod is the Apple iPod touch 3rd Generation ($179.99 for the 8GB to $359.99 for the 64GB) that comes installed with the iPhone OS 3.1 software and a 3.5″ widescreen Multi-Touch display.
Apple iPod nano 5th Generation with 8GB with a smaller profile 2.2″ color TFT display.
Finally, the Apple iPod classic 7th Generation with 160GB is a great choice for someone who loves to carry all their music with them (roughly 40k songs) but they don’t care about grabbing apps from the iTunes store. Also, this is a hard drive based iPod so don’t exercise or run with this one!
12 Gizmos for Christmas: #7 Gaming Devices
Gaming systems have always been a hit for our holiday gifts wrap-up and this year, even in a recession, there is no exception. Over the past three years we have the same players with consoles from Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft with minor changes to the consoles such as a “Silver Edition”, “Slim Edition” or some other sort of “Limited Edition”. In any case, the changes between editions are slight including better energy efficiency or support for the latest HDMI standard, etc…
Our first pick is the best selling console probably due to price and the ease of use for casual or party gamers… the Nintendo Wii. Additionally this console has really created a new genre of popular games with the advent of legitimate exercise games.
The Play Station 3 is the second best selling console on the market with incredible high definition graphics and an excellent Blu Ray player converging high definition video with a console. It’s easy to make the leap from a $200 Blu Ray player to a $300 Play Station 3 that includes a Blu Ray player.
Finally, XBox 360 is a great gift choice for the hard core gamer as some of the best titles exist only on the XBox 360 platform. Gears of War and Halo franchises are both exclusive to the XBox 360 console so if you’re giving a console to a true gamer, XBox 360 should be at the top of your list.
12 Gizmos for Christmas: #8 Blu Ray Players
With many Blu Ray Players dropping to sub-$100 around Black Friday and through the holidays including combo deals with new TVs, Blu Ray Players will be under many trees this Christmas. While DVD sales will still far outweigh Blu Ray Discs, the Blu Ray Players will become a hot commodity.
The best seller at Amazon and other retailers is the Panasonic DMP-BD60. The player is constantly either bundled or on sale so this unit is always competitively priced for a major name brand. Additionally, the player provides 1080P up-convert for DVDs and Viera Cast allowing you to pull up YouTube, Picasa and Weather. This geek got this Blu Ray Player through a bundle deal and after watching Up (great movie, I laughed and cried) on a new Samsung LED LCD TV, my socks were absolutely blown off!
Next, the Sony BDP-N460 allows for instant streaming online entertainment from leading providers at a medium price point.
Finally, if you have a wall-mounted TV, you need to check out the Samsung BD-P4600. This wall-mountable Blu Ray player directly matches the Samsung LED TVs, but you can use with any wall mounted TV. Besides being sexy, some of the features include Wi-Fi capable, Netflix video and Pandora music streaming not to mention all the Audio/Video features you’d look for in a higher end Blu Ray Player.
12 Gizmos for Christmas: #9 Mobile Phone
The number nine slot in the Geeks countdown goes to Mobile Phones. Typically we’ll list a few types of mobile phones (conventional mobile phones, smart phones and multimedia phones); however this year we are going to exclusively concentrate on smart phones. Perhaps we hang around with too many geeks, but if someone we know purchases a mobile phone that’s not a smart phone… they are shunned by our geek society!
The top selling consumer mobile phone still is the iPhone. The app store and interface will continue to allow Apple to see strong sales for the iPhone. Next, the Blackberry Bold 9700 has strong sales and is currently number one on Amazon’s bestselling mobile phones with it’s full QWERTY keyboard and touch-sensitive optical trackpad, Wi-Fi networking, camera/camcorder (this phone has great quality) and Bluetooth stereo music. Finally, the Palm Pre deserves at spot at number three with Palm’s new webOS featuring Synergy technology to auto-pull together your contacts and calendars into one screen.
12 Gizmos for Christmas: #10 Digital SLR Cameras
This year we felt digital cameras needed two entries, one for the less expensive small cameras that fit in your pocket and the DSLR (Digital Single-Lens Reflex) cameras. DSLRs are becoming more prevalent in households because they allow an accurate preview of framing close to the moment of exposure with a variety of interchangeable lenses to choose from.
Our top pick in the DSLR category is the Canon EOS Rebel T1i. With continous shooting speed of around 3.4 shots per second and the ability to use over 60 Canon EF/EF-S lenses, this DSLR will be a hot item this year. The next choice is the Nikon D3000 with Nikon EXPEED image processing allowing in-camera image editing and Active D-Lighting.
The last pick is by far the best selling DSLR on the market today… Canon Digital Rebel XSi. This is the entry level DSLR from Canon and a step down from the T1i mentioned as the first pick, with slightly less optical sensor resolution at 12.2 MP still shooting over 3 frames per second. No matter which DSLR you pick, you’ll love the quality of the shots and how many frames per second you can take rather than seconds per frame.
12 Gizmos for Christmas: #11 GPS
GPS units represent our 11th pick in the countdown. Our predictions for the best selling units will be the basic and least expensive model such as the Garmin nüvi 260W.
While most will not splurge, some of us simply “need” some advanced features! For example, the Magellan RoadMate 1470 includes advanced features such as multi-destination routing, highway lane assist, spoken street names, AAA TourBook and a Roadside Assistance menu while the TomTom GO 730 tauts IQ Routes Technology giving you the fastest route every time by using actual average speeds of travel on your route and Advanced Lane Guidance using photorealistic images to bring even more clarity to complex multi-lane exits so you can be more confident on the road.
12 Gizmos for Christmas: #12 eBook Reading Device
Avid readers are turning digital with the latest eBook Reading Devices including Amazon’s Kindle, the Sony Digital Reader and Barnes & Noble’s Nook. Popularity of eBook Readers has been increasing as thousands of books, newspapers, magazines and even blogs can be read and new features including wireless and WiFi access, additional storage space, longer battery life and even color touch screens hit the market.
Currently Kindle is King but many believe the Barnes & Noble Nook will dethrone Amazon from the top spot with features like WiFi, a color touch screen to view the book covers (like an iPod viewing album covers) and expandable memory. If you want to give a Nook for Christmas, you’ll have to give a Holiday Certificate instead as the expected ship date is not until January 4th while the Kindle and Sony’s Digital Reader are available now.
12 Gizmos for Christmas: 2009 Edition
It’s that time of year again for the Geek’s picks for what we believe will be the hottest Gizmos for Christmas this year. Usually the Geek’s release the picks in a countdown over 12 days, but this year we’re releasing our category picks up front! Each day during the countdown we’ll release our top picks for the category of the day.
There were some changes in the technology world this year and the market’s response to the world downturn in the economy have helped shaped the order of this list. For example, with the release of Windows 7, desktops and laptops have moved up the list with the first decent OS from Microsoft since XP in 8 years (that’s right, we’ve been living on XP since October 25, 2001!). Another area with new technology emerging into the consumer market includes new back-lit (and edge-lit) techniques which has helped lower high-def television prices. Additionally, Apple no longer is the only Multi-touch mobile devices released.
Without further ado, here’s our countdown…
12. eBook Reading Device
11. GPS
10. Digital SLR Camera
9. Mobile Phone
8. Blu-Ray Player
7. Gaming Devices
6. MP3 Player
5. Portable Digital Cameras and Camcorders
4. Games
3. Computers (Desktops/Laptops)
2. High-definition Televisions
1. Gadget Accessories
Check back daily for our picks and defense for each category!
Amazon’s UK Site offering free Super Saving shipping for Xmas
If you’re one of our UK readers, you’ll be happy to hear that Amazon’s UK site is offering free Super Saving shipping for the Christmas season until Jan 1, 2010. Naturally, there are caveats, etc., but for the most part, you can get free 3-5 day shipping. Check out the details here.