Holiday Gift Guide
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TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: iPad for photographers
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. As we enter the first full-blown holiday season since the iPad's release, there are a good many people out there who are either getting one as a gift or toting one along to Grandma's to wow the family and, quite possibly, use it as a laptop replacement. If it's the latter, you're more than likely going to need to use the iPad as a means of clearing the card on your digital camera at some point. Here are a few things that will make the process easier.
TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: Shopping apps
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. Tomorrow officially begins the holiday shopping season in the States, and that means recycled air, linoleum floors and Orange Julius stains on your Quacker sweater. Of course I'm talking about the mall, which is best experienced in limited doses this time of the year. To help you get in and out, we've compiled some shopping apps to bring along with you. Here's what we found. Best bet -- avoid the mall entirely Some people enjoy the bustle of a holiday mall. Others prefer to stay at home. For the latter, we offer these handy apps. Windowshop (Free, compatible with iPad) Windowshop for iPad provides an iOS-friendly front end to Amazon. The entire selection is available and sorted by category: electronics, books, the Kindle store, movies, clothing ... 34 main categories in total, each with several sub-categories. Tap any item to pop up an information panel with photos, a description, customer ratings and, of course, the Add To Cart button. You can even add to your wish list and share items via email, Facebook or Twitter. Finally, a search field lets you avoid all of that scrolling and tapping. It's a tidy app that provides iPad-optimized access to Amazon's immense collection of stuff. Those with an iPhone/iPod touch will want to check out Amazon Mobile.
TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: External drives for every Mac
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. Giving someone a new hard drive can be one of the best gift choices ever. Whether the recipient uses it to store backups of their photos or movies, or wants to be able to boot an aging Mac a bit faster, the gift of storage is always appreciated. In this edition of the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide, I'll give you some ideas for inexpensive drives that are a good gift for someone who might need some extra gigabytes in which to store some personal information, up to some expensive arrays that can store terabytes of data. As usual, this is just a sampling of the many models and sizes of drives that are available from a variety of manufacturers. If you have a favorite drive that you think might be the perfect gift for that special someone, leave a comment below -- we'd love to hear about it.
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Netbooks and laptops
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. We're not going to lie, buying a laptop as a holiday present can be seriously scary. Not only are there tons of systems to choose from, but you're about to put down quite a bit of cash on something that's probably going to end up being someone's primary machine for a few years. Does your giftee need a netbook for just getting on the web to check e-mail? Or something thin and light with enough power to watch HD movies on the go? How about a Core i7-powered rig with discrete graphics to handle that Call of Duty: Black Ops that was in the stocking? You see, it's a daunting task, but fear not, we're here to ease the pain. Our breakdown of the best laptops is after the jump.
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Video Cameras
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. Photos make great mementos for important moments, but a picture of your kid taking her first step or writing his first blog post isn't quite as meaningful as a full-motion video of the event in question. That's why a video recorder of some sort is a must-have, and while your average compact camera is capturing better footage than ever, sometimes you need something a little more dedicated. That's when you need a camcorder, and this year we even have a bunch of 3D models to choose from. Which ones are right for you and for your budget? Click on through to find out.
TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: Docks that rock
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. There's an entire world of docks out there -- "Hickory Dickory Dock," "Sittin' on the Dock of the Bay," our very own Doc Rock, and the green light at the end of Daisy's dock in The Great Gatsby -- but the docks that make Apple fans the happiest are those that hold and charge iPhones, iPods, and iPads. There are some that act as big speakers for your iDevice, others that fill in for that old clock radio that you finally threw out the bedroom window, and some that charge more than one device at a time. Our dock recommendations come in an assortment of types as well: basic docks that just charge or sync your iPhone, iPad, or iPod, speaker docks for blasting out your tunes, and docks for helping you get to sleep at night or wake up in the morning. All of the prices that are quoted are in US dollars. This is just a sampling of the huge number of docks that are made for Apple devices. Be sure to check out TUAW coverage of many of the docks that are available.
TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: Must-have apps for your iPhone 4
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. It's that time of year again -- we're all giving and receiving gifts, and odds are there's going to be a few new iPhones and iPod touches in your immediate vicinity. Maybe you've been lucky enough to get one, or you've given one to a spouse or family member, or there's someone at work or school who just got one and is looking for app recommendations. For all of those people (and for you if you're just looking for some great new apps), we've compiled this quick list of terrific apps to download and fill out your iOS device's app collection. These app recommendations come from multiple categories -- some are paid, some are free. There are some games and utility apps. Some are easy to get into right away, while others will require a little more knowledge or an extra service. Some have been around as long as the App Store, while others are newcomers. But if you're starting from scratch and install all of these on your new iPhone, you'll get a nice taste of everything Apple's little handheld piece of magic can do.
TUAW's Holiday Gift Guide: 10 must-have apps for a new Mac
Welcome to the TUAW Holiday Gift Guide! We've sorted the treasure from the junk and are serving up suggestions to make your holiday gift-giving a little easier. Once the gift-giving holidays arrive, the lucky among us will find new Macs among our haul. Part of the fun of owning a Mac is acquiring some goodies to go with it. In this post, we'll focus on software. Specifically, the 10 apps you'll absolutely want on your new machine. WIthout further delay, here's our list (all prices are USD). 1. Quicksilver (free) [The Quicksilver page appears to be down, here's an alternate. - Ed] This is absolutely, positively the first piece of software I install on every new Mac. In fact, I dislike using a Mac without it. Quicksilver is a utility which, at first, appears to be a launcher. That is the most popular way to use it. Assign a hotkey combination to elicit its minimal window (there are several designs to choose from), type the first few letters of your target app, hit return and presto! Your app launches. This also works with URLs, contact names and phone numbers...on and on. Plus, the more you use it, the smarter it becomes. Now I can just hit "Command-Space-T" to open TUAW, even if a browser isn't running. It's a huge time-saver. Of course, that's barely the beginning of what Quicksilver can do. A huge number of other apps offer Quicksilver support. For instance, you can upload files via FTP with Transmit, launch AppleScripts, move files, compose email messages and more, all with a few keystrokes that will get so finely sewn into your muscle memory that conscious thought will be removed from the process. Not a bad start; our first gift suggestion is supremely useful and free! Now, on to number two.
Apple Store Holiday Gift Guide now live
Apple has launched a 2010 Holiday Gift Guide in their US online store. The guide this year is designed to spotlight three segments: buying entertaining gifts, buying gifts for creative minds, and buying gifts for yourself. Entertainment gifts include the Apple TV and Civilization V, while creative gifts include iLife '11, the Magic Trackpad, and Microsoft Office 2011. Gifts for yourself include a $400 Cole Haan Messenger Bag and a number of iPod docking speakers. While all the items are marked at regular price, Apple typically offers Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts at the end of November.
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Home theater setups
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. Congratulations, you've reached the end of your holiday list and have only one person left -- unfortunately, they're the one that never leaves the living room. With eyes constantly glues to the screen, a simple sweater or even the finest Williams-Sonoma has to offer just won't cut it. Luckily, we're here to help, especially if that poor soul is limited to some old school XGA projector, juggling multiple remotes or still waiting to make the jump to Blu-ray. Dig in after the break and see what will distract them from the HDTVs unnatural light long enough to say thanks. %Gallery-80859%
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Stuff you don't want
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. That whole gift giving time is very nearly upon us, and if you don't know what to get your closest and dearest by now, you may well be beyond salvation. To honor those lost souls, and to appease the anti-consumerists out there who think there's more junk in stores than there is sand in Dubai, we present the dark side of the Engadget HGG. Here, nestled in the same familiar price categories, we pick out the best of the worst gadgets to see the light of day in 2009. So join us after the break, and should you find yourself unwrapping one of these in a couple of days... you have our condolences. %Gallery-80837%
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Fun Stuff
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. Still haven't found just the right gift for that particularly hard-to-buy-for someone in one of the more neatly defined categories? Well, then look no further, 'cause we've collected a wide assortment of other products right here that may have little in common with one another, but will each undoubtedly bring a smile to the face of anyone that receives one of them. Just try to remember you're not shopping for yourself.
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide 2009
Have you checked into Engadget's massive 2009 Holiday Gift Guide? If not, you're making the biggest mistake of the season. Seriously. Don't let this year mark the end of happiness. Help us help you... just study the guides below (and stay tuned for even more)! Accessories Cellphones e-book readers GPS Netbooks PMPs Smartphones Television / Displays Toys Laptops Desktops Docks & Clocks Video Cameras Digital Cameras
WoW.com's gift guide for 2009
It's that time of year again -- if you (like me) haven't gotten gifts for everyone on your list, it's time to start scrambling to find something nice to get under the tree this year. Fortunately, you don't have to worry about finding something good for the World of Warcraft fan in your life: we've got you covered there. In the gallery below, we've got a nice bunch of gift ideas for everything Warcraft, from the cheap to the expensive, from the silly to the practical, from in-game presents you can wrap with shiny paper, to out-of-game classics that you can... also wrap with shiny paper. If you need to give a gift to a WoW player this year, you'll find it below for sure. And if you happen to be a Warcraft player, faced with the annual awkward question of "What do you want me to give you this year?", just feel free to drop this link surreptitiously as a reply, maybe even with a hint or two towards a specific item. We've included links to everything and kept it easy to understand even for someone who hasn't visited Azeroth before. That's our gift to you. Happy holidays, and good gift hunting! %Gallery-79856%
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Laptops
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. Buying a laptop as a holiday present for someone is fraught with danger: you're more than likely buying someone's primary machine, and they're going to think of you every single time they boot it up, whether it's to do work, play games, or gently stalk old flames on the "Face Book." Worry not, though -- we're here to help, with a grab-bag of laptop choices that offers something for everyone.
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Televisions
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. Want a gift the whole family can enjoy? A brand new television is sure to do the trick and with more HDTV content available than ever from antenna, cable, satellite, Blu-ray discs or even the internet, there will always be something to watch. Whether it's their first flat-panel or an upgrade, these picks come through in several price ranges selected to maximize your, we mean their, viewing pleasure. The only question left we can't help you with? Who gets the first turn on the remote.%Gallery-79792%
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Smartphones
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. If your BFF's HTC has a code name like Blue Angel, Harrier, or Canary, trust us: the time has come to intervene and forcefully bring that particular chapter of their technological life to a close. It's 2009, after all, and with devices like the Pre, iPhone 3GS, and Droid all coming to market in the past few months, there's never been a better time to be a smartphone lover, buyer, or -- in this case -- giver. Of course, in the States, giving a phone as a gift isn't the easiest thing in the world since you've got contracts to worry about, but it can be done -- even if you've got to drag the lucky recipient kicking and screaming into the store and hold their hand to the dotted line. So let's get to it, shall we?%Gallery-79790%
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Toys
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. So, you're here, and you probably like toys, or you're just really stuck with what to get for your lesser-geeks family and friends. Our guess is that you want something that even you want to play with (and maybe eventually repossess them when the love is over), but at the same time you want to avoid toys that'll drive you nuts when you're living with the lucky recipient. We know it's no easy task here, so we've picked out some of the hottest toys this year to keep things fresh for a while. Read on for some joyous gift inspiration.%Gallery-79794%
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Accessories
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. What luck. The Secret Santa recipient that you drew already has everything, so there's little you can buy him / her that they'll actually be impressed with. Thankfully, the peripheral market is here for you, and while some may considering these things "trinkets," others will be downright giddy to unwrap 'em. And whether you'd care to admit it or not, these are easily the most fun to shop for. Yeah, we said it -- what of it? Hop on past the break for a few recommendations on knickknacks, or "accessories," as it were.%Gallery-79783%
Engadget's Holiday Gift Guide: Netbooks
Welcome to the Engadget Holiday Gift Guide! The team here is well aware of the heartbreaking difficulties of the seasonal shopping experience, and we want to help you sort through the trash and come up with the treasures this year. Below is today's bevy of hand curated picks, and you can head back to the Gift Guide hub to see the rest of the product guides as they're added throughout the holiday season. The term "netbook" is such a moving target that it's hard to tell if it'll even be relevant at all in a year or two. But for the moment at least it's a handy bit of shorthand for a laptop that sacrifices performance in exchange for a small form factor and cost savings. Usually. Of course, you've got to weigh the sacrifices when gifting one of these: if your target is a power user who can't get anything done on that smaller screen, slightly-cramped keyboard and low-end processor, then you might want to look elsewhere, but if they've got an unhealthy passion for portability and things in miniature, you might just make their year.%Gallery-79788%
