Here are my ideas for last-minute Christmas gifts, almost all of which are available at Amazon.com:
cheap
- book for food/diet/photography nerds: What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets
- book for nature lovers: Natural History
(big grids of nicely printed photos of dozens of different animals or plants on each page)
- book for dog owners: 101 Dog Tricks
- toy for young kid: Plush Border Collie
(very realistic except that it doesn’t bite you 50 times daily, eat your shoes, and display other signs of criminal insanity)
- for the kid who graduated in June and remains unemployed: The Book of U.S. Government Jobs
- for investors: A Random Walk Down Wall Street
(the classic, updated to reflect the Collapse of 2008)
expensive
- mother of all toaster ovens: Breville BOV800XL
(way faster (due to convection) and more convenient (due to integrated timer) than a standard oven)
- best all-around compact camera: Canon S95
- mobile phone with the best screen for viewing photos: Samsung Epic 4G
(Organic LED screen, unique among smartphones; real keyboard; order with two extra batteries and three chargers unless recipient lives in a very good Sprint coverage area)
- tablet computer for someone who wants to carry it in a pocket and listen to music: Creative ZIIO 7
(half the price of an iPad; should also run any Android application)
- great sound in a small convenient package: Bowers & Wilkins iPod Dock
(same concept as the Bose systems, but engineered by the world’s leading speaker company (B&W is an English company that makes most of the $10,000 monitors used in recording studios))
aviation-related
- book for helicopter nerds: The Helicopter: Thinking Forward, Looking Back
(some real aerodynamics)
- for a pilot: an ebook reader for viewing approach plates, either the Kindle
(cheap, very sharp screen, near-infinite battery life) or iPad Tablet
(expensive, screen slightly blurry due to color LCD technology, shorter battery life, more flexible and capable than Kindle)
Folks: please use the comments section to post your best Christmas gift ideas.
I chose the Panasonic Lumix LX5 over the Canon S95. The LX5 is quicker and wider, and allows zooming while recording video. The S95 is smaller with much better colors out of the box. Ultimately I wanted the speed.
For half the price of an iPad, you can also get the Nook Color, and then root it: same Android 2.1, with a better but smaller screen.
Cheap: World Almanac 2011. All kinds of data at your fingertips. For example, one glance at one of the tables reveals that real wages for most workers are at slightly less than 1970 levels. $9 or so at Amazon, and it gets you a ton of information in compact form.
Cheap: A Leatherman tool. You get a pair of pliers, a few knifes, a saw, assorted screwdrivers, rulers, an awl, and a file all in one foldable gadget that can sit in the glove compartment for the day when its desperately needed.
Jagadeesh: Hasn’t the Almanac been superseded by “the Google” (as King Bush II called it)? The Leatherman seems risky because inevitably TSA will confiscate it. (Back in the 1990s I remember that the #1-promoted souvenirs in the Zurich airport duty free shops were actual knives (Swiss Army) and travelers were encouraged to buy them and carry them onto planes.)
Phil: Does the Nook Color have the same sharpness as a grayscale or black and white eInk display? Or is it fuzzed up like a color CRT or LCD screen? [I think I may be able to answer my own question; the Nook Color seems to use a conventional color LCD display so it will be just as fuzzy as an iPad or laptop.]
[Separately, a friend of mine bought an amazing Planar Dome monochrome LCD monitor for desktop reading of PDFs; it was designed for radiologists and is incredibly sharper and more readable than even the fanciest color LCDs. $4000.]
FYI — other phones have OLED screens. For example, the Nexus One has (had?) an OLED screen, and the newer Nexus S has an AMOLED screen.
Chris: Thanks for the correction. I guess it would be better to say that Samsung is unique among current smartphone makers in being able to include an OLED screen (the Nexus One was HTC, but isn’t made anymore, is it?). I do love the display. It seems infinitely more attractive than LCD, though of course the temptation is to keep waking up the phone to marvel at the screen, which further trashes battery life.
Try BlueNile.com.
I bought an engagement ring and wedding band
from them and no one locally (central Virginia) could
come close to matching their prices.
They have an unusally competent staff answering the
phones and their website is fairly uncomplicated, plus
they offer free shipping (usually overnight or 2-day
delivery via FedEx).
That B&W Zeppelin is the best-sounding iPod dock, hands down. But I suppose it should be, at that price.
Regarding the Leatherman: I’m too scared to take mine out of the house in the UK, as knife laws here anticipated the TSA hysteria by decades. Carrying anything that could be used as a weapon, even a can of mace, could get you in serious trouble here. There’s no point anyway, because if you defended yourself against a robber you would face prosecution for assault. The state is a jealous god…
I’m a fan of the Photon Micro Light II LED Light. Its a tiny flashlight that clips on a keychain. http://www.photonlight.com/ . It’s available at REI and Amazon.
And what gift does a young rambunctious Border Collie need for the holidays?
– Perhaps a cute samoyed girlfriend to teach him how to chillax?
Philip: I do like the almanac more than “The Google”. It’s compact, data can be had in the flip of a page, and one does not need to browse over to multiple web sites to get the information. Turn to any of the thousand or so pages, and you will find another nugget of useful information. And while I’ve purchased other almanacs in the past, (The NY Times Almanac, and the Time Almanac), the World Almanac has the highest information density of them all.
Point taken about the Leatherman. Perhaps better suited to those who are land-bound.
I have no advice on buying a practical gift, but I just need to say that the toaster oven looks awesome; that’s definitely on my post-Xmas gift shortlist.
If you travel a lot, the Leatherman is probably out, like others have said. Otherwise, nearly everyone on EDCForums carries one. Probably the most loved item over there.
Non-practical, but absolutely absurd savings: I think Polk Audio is phasing out their old Monitor 70s and replacing them with TSi 500(?), but Newegg has a truckload of them left for 235-ish bucks off EACH ($800 for the pair, now $330). If you’re a terrible budgeter like myself, these are a fantastic intro into non-crappy speakers.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882290208
Josh: Thanks for the speaker advice. That does look like a good deal. I tend to judge speakers by weight. A dynamic speaker needs a heavy magnet and the cabinet needs to be heavy enough to damp out the back wave and the resonance from a loud sound before the speaker tries to play a soft sound. So at 47 lbs. each these should be pretty good.
What’s EDCForums? I went there and couldn’t figure it out. How come the Leatherman is so beloved? Are they truly better than the competition from Gerber and the Swiss companies?
It was a Pisces birthday gift and my sophisticated friend was really moved by a neat, rectangular slice of sandstone with an exquisitely articulated, several-million-years-old fish fossil. He had just moved into a big, new office – with many papers. This might be possible for Scorpios as well.
Quality LED flashlights make a great gift for folks who appreciate finer things and have a need for a flashlight. The modern LED lights are mind blowing in both output and efficiency(run-time). Jetbeam’s RRT series is an outstanding value. All the lights in this series have a selector ring for output. The RRT-0 fits in the palm of your hand, and outputs 240/180 lumens on a single CR123/AA battery(be sure to get the AA extender tube if you plan to use AA batteries). Around a hundred bucks. RRT-1 and 2 are larger configurations of the 0. The RRT-3 is hefty(though not much larger than the typical 80’s era flashlight), with an output of 1200 lumens for $325–considerably brighter than your vehicles headlights.
These lights are an order of magnitude better than what you’ll find in local retail stores, excluding perhaps your local tactical/gun or fine cutlery shops.
http://bugoutgearusa.com/jefl.html
Remote controlled helicopter makes a great gift for those with aviation dreams but not the discretionary income and commitment to do the real thing.
http://www.amazon.com/Syma-S107-Gyroscope-Controlled-Helicopter/dp/8499000606/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1292979599&sr=8-1
3 ch coaxial ones are pretty easy (though still not trivial) to fly for a beginner as I can attest.
6 ch 3D ones can do absolutely crazy things. Perhaps you should treat Santa to a flight like this:
Phil: the Leatherman I just seem to stumbleupon a lot within the forums (and, oddly enough, I first heard of them from another programming nerd, Jeff Atwood and his CodingHorror blog.) EDCForums does have kind of a weird design, but on their main page, you actually have to click on “Forum” on the top nav menu to get to the actual forums. I think the main page is just reviews by the owner of the site.
Here are two sample polls I found from the site favoring Leatherman (but this could be bias since I just did a search against Leatherman…)
http://edcforums.com/showthread.php/39280-Which-Multitool-do-you-carry
http://edcforums.com/showthread.php/54489-Leatherman-vs-Gerber?highlight=leatherman
However, plenty of people enjoy Gerber products, and from what I’ve seen, many people probably own(ed) both. But I think the Leatherman is ideal for many people because they’re most popular tools are quite useful, small, and incredibly sturdy. Although, I think the smallness + usefulness edges out other companies for its use on the keychain. In my opinion, the standard swiss army knife is usually too bulky/heavy to pocket carry without it being too noticeable, and the tools can sometimes be too hard to extract (especially with freshly cut nails.)
you want a terrific holiday gift? try having your honey restored to health at MGH cardiac- due to genetic flaws, my honey got a new bovine aortic valve, a new dacron piece of aorta, and the congenital holes in his heart were patched- and all this for our 40th wedding anniversary- so for the holidays we are celebrating!!!!!
TSA did intercept my leatherman and I paid $17.00 to a vending machine to have it mailed back. (almost the full price of the item)
Phil: The camera you recommend has no optical viewfinder, a rarity in P&S cameras these day.
For the dog owner, a customized dog collar with name and owner’s contact information. We ordered one for our dog from LuckyPet and it was high quality and delivered promptly.
Motivation: I’m amazed how many dogs I’ve found with a collar but no useful ID or contact information. Of course the animal control guys can read a microchip and return the dog; however, it is easier for everyone if the owner’s phone number is attached to the animal and the pet can be returned without a simple call.
LuckyPet offers a service with an 800 number where they will continuously call multiple numbers for the pet owner until the owner is reached. For one-time $10 fee this seems like a good deal.
http://www.luckypet.com/products.php?cat=198
http://www.luckypet.com/oa_pop.html