Hot Holiday Gadgets List
By RedFlagDeals.com Staff • Page 1 of 1
Last Updated: September 23, 2011
Compiled by RedFlagDeals.com Staff
It's the busiest shopping season of the year. If there's a gadget lover that you're shopping for, or you're just looking for some interesting computers and electronics items, we've pulled together a list of popular items that should give you some gift ideas:
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The Amazon Kindle
The Amazon Kindle is finally available to Canadians and international customers and it will set you back about $310 US including shipping. The Kindle is certainly the market leader as far as eBook readers go. It can access 3G, EDGE, and GSM networks permitting you tp download books wirelessly and the Kindle can hold approximately 1500 non-illustrated books. You can find e-books in many places and at varying costs -- Amazon.com has over 300,000 titles available for purchase, and Project Gutenberg has over 25,000 copyright-free e-books available at no charge, for starters. Gadget lovers and book lovers rejoice!
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Solid-State Drives
SSDs, or solid-state drives use solid state memory to store data. They have no moving parts, no mechanical delays, and in many circumstances, lower access times and lower latency than traditional hard drives. It's been a bumpy road, but these drives coming into their own. Lots of enthusiasts out there are now enjoying fast bootup times for their computers and fast access to important applications and files.
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The Western Digital WDTV Live HD Media Player
The WDTV Live lets you play back media from portable storage devices (like external hard drives or flash drives) on your television. Support for 1080p content (ie. mkv files) makes it stand out. Compared to an HTPC, it's smaller, simpler, and cheaper way to play movies and other media on your TV. As the successor to the original WDTV, the WDTV Live is network ready and has DTS downmixing.
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Apple iPhone
There's no getting around it -- the iPhone is a runaway success. The combination of slick looks, interface, and huge software (app) library continue to make the iPhone the most popular phone on the marketplace. It's now available from all major carriers in Canada.
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"CULV" Laptop
"CULV" is an acronym for "consumer ultra-low voltage". That's a fancy title for an increasingly popular class of laptops -- affordable, thin systems with long battery life that offer more power and functionality than traditional netbooks. The market is growing steadily with offerings from big players like Dell, Asus, Lenovo, Acer, and more.
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Pocket HD Camcorders
The future is here. Nowadays, you can record HD video with a camcorders that fit comfortably in your pocket, and many of them pull it off without setting you back more than $100 to $200. You might not shoot an award winning documentary (or will you?), but these devices excel if you want to easily shoot some videos at the playground, park, sports event, concerts, or night on the town.
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Playstation 120GB Slim
A much needed price drop has breathed new life into the Playstation 3. At $299.99 for the 120GB version (or less if you keep an eye out for a deal), there will be many Playstation 3s under Christmas trees this year. Some impressive exclusive titles that entered the market in time for the holiday season help, too. Try Uncharted 2 and Demon's Souls to get the ball rolling.
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Nintendo DS
The Nintendo DS is a few years old now, but it's still selling like hotcakes and it has a big library of fun games. For the time being, the incumbent DS Lite is coexisting with the newer DSi. It's tough to go wrong with either of them.
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Bluetooth Headsets
They're not exactly new, but hands-free driving laws are now commonplace in Canada (Ontario, Quebec, Newfoundland & Labrador, Nova Scotia, with Saskatchewan as of January 1, 2010). Whether you think they look sleek or silly, Bluetooth Headsets are important and here to stay.
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IPS Panel LCDs
At long last, IPS panel LCD monitors (which offer superior colour reproduction and viewing angles) are becoming attainable for the general public. More affordably priced offerings from the likes of Philips and Dell are appearing, and a cheaper panel varient known as the E-IPS panel has also made a big splash in the form the Dell Ultrasharp 2209WA.
If you're still not inspired, you can have a look at some gadget roundups from some other publications: