Here are some quick tech gift ideas for the holiday season or any time of the year. I am sure there are many other ideas out there depending on budgets and personal interests.
Tech Toy Ideas for Kids
Mattel Barbie Fashion Design Maker
– Lets you create your own outfits on PC or tablet, print them out, and stick them on.
Hot Wheels Street Hawk Remote Control Flying Car
– Lightweight Styrofoam flying car!
LeapFrog LeapTV
– Targeted to ages 3 to 8, offers best of Sony and Microsoft with a Wii-like controller and Kinect like motion sensing.
Wowwee MiP
– Robot with emotions, wants to play, spin-dances to music.
Lego City High-Speed Passenger Train
– Toysrus, 8-channel, 7-speed, infrared remote control lego train set.
Tech Gift Ideas Under $50
Google Chromecast, the Amazon Fire TV Stick, or the Roku Streaming Stick
– Super easy to stream video to your TV/projector.
Misfit Flash
– Entry-level activity tracking watch, comes in a variety of colors.
Kingston DataTraveler microDuo USB Flash Drive
– 32 GB thumb drive that sports both USB and microUSB connection so you can connect it to your Android and PC to easily transfer files.
JBL Clip
– Ultra portable rechargeable Bluetooth speaker with carabiner, even has built-in microphone.
Portable Battery Packs
– Recharge your smartphone or tablet anywhere on the go, cost anywhere from $5 to $50, many can fully charge your phone several times.
Good ideas. Let me throw another one in the mix, that I don’t see mentioned most of the time “geeky gift ideas” come up, and I keep wondering why: “touch” pens!
I mean “those pens with either some kind of rubber or cloth material on one of their ends” you can use on a touchscreen instead of your finger. Most people believed Apple when dear Mr. Jobs said “you don’t need pens, just your fingers” (to use a smartphone), but he-was-wrong. By using a stylus you’re not hiding THAT big a part of your devices screen as your finger, and you’ve got more accuracy.
Whomever I have one loved it and instantly became a stylus addict – they can’t go back to just using their fingers.
These are some pretty good gifts actually, nice!
It feels like so long ago I was a kid, and I’m trying to remember all the stuff we wanted back then. Hardly any of that still exists today. Gosh, I’m getting old!
This JBL clip looks pretty interesting, haven’t even heard of a carabiner before.
I have never heard of the Barbie fashion maker. Barbie has changes so much since I was a little girl, now she has walking horses and dream mansions. Everything changes in the toy world very quickly. I would like to see you write a blog about what the stream t.v. options are and who they fit for best. I would also like to know more about how they work. I will look into the Barbie and the Lego train because I think my kids would really love those. Legos now have every option available, I love the fusion lego set where you interact with the app.
Portable battery packs are seriously such a good investment, don’t have to worry about finding an electrical outlet or getting into a situation with a dead phone. Useful for emergencies and handy anytime where you’re away from home really, and most now charge your phone from 0 to 100% and then some.
I bought one of these last year and it has bailed me out on several occasions for work. There have been multiple times where I require tethering my laptop to my phone for internet access while on the road for several hours, which absolutely drains the cell phone’s battery.
Without a chance to recharge, I’d have been left without a phone out in the middle of nowhere so it’s been very convenient.
For a more personal gift, a great idea is actually buying an original protective case for a friend or relatives favorite device.
Nowadays we all have one or two devices we use the most – and it’s usually a smartphone or a tablet. For many models there are not only useful but also strange and/or funny cases, perfect for a “silly gift” to a friend – one he or she’ll like but will probably never… er… dare to take outside for others to see 🙂
I have purchased Leappad for my kids in the past and also they little bike they had. It’s hard to find educational, fun toys for children. I know from experience that leapfrog is a good one. Good choice!
Excuse my ignorance, but either we don’t have whatever Leappad – Leapfrog are in Greece, or I’m not familiar with them. So… Er… What are they? David’s description makes me understand it’s something… like… a console? A cheaper clone of Nintendo’s Wii, maybe?
A search lead me to such results, but are we talking about the same thing? And, if you’ve got it, would you care to elaborate on what makes it so great? I’m (still) looking for some gifts for kiddos in the family and it sounds like a good idea – even if “we don’t have it over here” maybe I could import one for them.
Some nice ideas here; Leapfrog has proven for me, in the past, to be a good company to buy from, their products always work as advertised. I agree with portable battery packs- some of the tablets out there really guzzle up battery!
How about an NVIDIA Shield gaming tablet? shield(.)nvidia(.)com/gaming-tablet/
Kids sure LOVE gaming, and the portability of tablets. Mix them and you have a great tech gift for the holidays.
I’m hesitant to jump in on new technology like this – not that I’m saying tablet gaming is anything new. But high performance in a tablet form factor is just asking for problems with heat… the Shield is one of those things that I think would benefit from waiting a revision or two for them to iron out the hardware issues before committing to one.
I scanned articles and articles over the past few months trying to find the top most latest tech for my techy son and husband. They love technology and always love to have the best items. The top two recommended products I found online you also recommended in this article and I have to say that my husband and son said this was the best Christmas yet! So thanks for your recommendations and honesty!
Great gift ideas. With the way people are always on the go, often times convenience is the best gift. All these gifts are something I would recommend for someone who often uses a smartphone or tablet. Thanks!
This post would probably benefit from pictures or, at least, links to some online products. That being said, they are pretty good ideas! One of my friend had a portable battery for his iPhone. It was actually a solar one, pretty ideal for camping (we was in the desert of Canada, sun was pretty much always present!)
Last Christmas, I gave my SO a spypen, with an integrated micro memory card. By pressing the button, you could record or take pictures! You could also write with normal ink. 🙂 Probably fun for kids — there were also such spy watches.
The chromecast seems to be a popular gift option this year. I guess as long as you make sure that the recipient has a television that has HDMI and a network connection or wifi, you should be good to go.
Another decent media themed gift idea for the more technically saavy would be something like a media server. There are a variety of prebuilt ones out there that will hook up to whatever they use for a media library (NAS for example) and set up a streaming interface. Plex for example is pretty decent.
I always say I’m going ti buy myself a portable battery for my phone, but I always fail to do so, lol. A friend of mine bought her niece the Barbie Fashion Design Maker, and she said it was very gimmicky and had to return it back to the store, so I would advise everyone to be careful with that toy.
I’m also surprised that LeapFrog is still around. I used to play with their toys all the time when I was little, so it’s good to see that they’re still standing strong.
Some great ideas for all ages here! I think the portable battery packs would be particularly popular – teens are glued to their phones and a flat battery is akin to a global disaster to some! They are a great way of avoiding a first-world problem. Secretly, I would like a Wowwee MiP myself, dont tell anyone!
Some great ideas. I would say for kids a kid friendly smartphone or tablet would be quite nice. Something that they can use for gaming and at school and show off their friends without blowing the budget. I wouldn’t buy my kids an Ipad or the latest smartphone. Even my younger 20 year old Brother has gone through 3 smartphones himself this year!
Great ideas! I’d love to have something like the Wowwee MiP if i was a little girl! I can’t imagine how much my niece would love it! It sounds like a really interesting gift and one I’d surely consider giving in the future 🙂
I’m not sure most kids her age would get how cool really is to have a robot like that, but again, isn’t as if we were talking about artificial intelligence. I just can’t wait to see the rise of artificial intelligence tho, it sure is going to be interesting.
Chromecast is a very nice mini-tech gift to give to someone. I feel that everyone shoulf have one nowadays.
I also bought a battery pack recently and it makes such a big difference. I am able to watch a lot of movies while I’m travelling just because I can recharge my tablet at anytime.