Top 10 Holiday Gadgets 2005 December 07, 2005

Introduction

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So without further ado:

10. LaCie Brick 250GB HD ($150)
No one ever has enough hard drive space. After a few months of use, both the person with the 80GB drive and the person with a 500GB drive will have less than 10% free. You will always find ways to use the space that you have and for that reason, buying a hard drive as a gift for a PC enthusiast is always a good idea.

While you can go with something like a Hitachi T7K250 (our Editor's Choice award winning SATA-II drive) or a Western Digital Raptor, most PC enthusiasts have already invested their money into a high-performance boot drive. This means that an external HDD is likely going to see more benefit in terms of providing a way to backup all the music, video, and digital photographs that a power user is likely to have.

I recommend the LaCie Brick simply because it looks like a giant LEGO block. While you are paying a small premium for the French-design and the gimmick factor, the attractive thing about the Brick is that the pricing is actually very competitive. Although you can sometimes find HDDs with big rebates that may or may not be fulfilled, a quick search at Newegg shows that an OEM 250GB drive runs you about $100. An IDE to USB 2.0 enclosure adds about $25. What this means is that you're only spending an extra $25 to get a LaCie Brick instead of a build-it-yourself approach. In fact, the price differential is much less because I'm comparing Newegg discount pricing against the MSRP for the LaCie Brick. Therefore, compared to pre-packaged drives from companies such as Maxtor or Western Digital, Lacie's Brick HDD is actually a bargain.

The creative design may not offer any additional performance to the hard disk, but it does show your recipient that you did more than just buy a random off-the-shelf hard drive and actually put some thought into it. A F.A. Porsche Design USB 2.0 model is also available for the same price, however we prefer the brick. For power users, the Triple Interface d2 hard drives feature USB 2.0, Firewire 400, and Firewire 800. We use the triple interface drive regularly in our own labs.

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9. DVICO Fusion 5 HDTV Tuner or VBOX Cat's Eye ($100 to 150)
For the PC gamer who has everything, consider a PCI HDTV tuner upgrade. Most major metropolitan cities and suburbs in the United States now receive free high-definition broadcasts from NBC, CBS, ABC, FOX, the WB, and even PBS. What's nice about the PC HDTV solution is that you can record free off-the-air movies. Once you use your GeForce or Radeon to transmit the image to your regular TV, you now have a TIVO that does high-definition without any subscription fees. Since many movies are broadcast in 5.1 surround sound, you actually have an opportunity to record "better than DVD" quality movies provided that you're willing to fast forward through the commercials.


The ATI HDTV Wonder is the easiest HDTV tuner to find in retail stores, however ATI's Multimedia Center software is not known for its reliability. This won't be a problem with 3rd-party tools such as WatchHDTV or if the HDTV Wonder is being installed into a Windows Media Center Edition PC. While it's virtually impossible to find a DVICO FusionHDTV or the Vbox Cat's Eye in stores, we recommend retailers such as www.pcalchemy.com who have the units in stock.

As you recall, PC Alchemy is one of the best retailers for home-theater PC equipment. They have a wider selection than Newegg, more competitive pricing than Newegg for many items, and even have a perfect 10.0 on ResellerRatings.com.

Between the two HDTV tuners, in general, the DVICO is considered to offer better hardware with the ability to deal with multipath broadcast signals whereas the Vbox has better drivers making it easier to install and maintain.

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8. iPod Nano ($200 to $250)

7.
iPod with Video ($300 to 400)

If you're looking for an MP3 player to give as a gift, I'd recommend the Apple iPod nano or the iPod with video. Now, I know there are Creative Zen Micro fans out there or iAudio X5 fans who will say that their players offer better value, better sound quality, and the ability to purchase replacement batteries. Likewise, MP3 players such as the mobiBLU cube offer more style and exclusivity (even though it's sold at Wal-Mart!) in comparison to the iPod shuffle. So why am I still recommending the Apple iPod?

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4. Sennheiser HD-590: $130
If you're buying a gift for a music lover who doesn't already have a set of high-end headphones, I recommend either the Grado SR60 ($70) or the Sennheiser HD-590. Unlike other audiophile headphones which may require accessory amplifiers, both of these headphones work well when connected directly to a portable device such as the iPod or a laptop. These headphones are an open design, which means that other people will be able to hear the music just as loudly. Although the cables that come with these headphones are too long because they're designed for home use, this is a small sacrifice for the sound quality that these headphones offer.

The HD-590 is substantially better than the Grado SR60. When it was first introduced in 2000, these headphones sold for a staggering $300! While audiophiles debated whether the sound quality of the HD-590 was up to the $300 price tag, at the close-out price of $130, there's no doubt that you'll find it difficult to find a better headphone for the same amount of money.

The Grado SR60 ($70) would be a good competitor in terms of value. It's a smaller headphone, which makes it a bit easier than the HD590 to use with portable equipment. Although it has always been a $70 product, the SR60 is consistently considered a headphone with exceptional value. If it weren't for the close-out pricing on the Sennheiser HD-590 at stores like Audio Advisor (because the HD-595's have been released), there's no doubt that the Grado SR60 would have been my top pick.

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2. Monster Music SuperDiscs ($25)
A tried-and-true technology gift under $25 is a DVD movie or a music CD. If you know what your recipient actually wants, it's automatically a personalized gift. But what if you don't? Well, if you're buying for a music fan, my top pick would be Monster Music's Charlie Brown SuperDiscs.

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1. Logitech G7 Mouse ($80)
Microsoft has successfully challenged and overtaken its competitors in
every market it has focused on ranging from operating systems to web
browsers. Even the Xbox 360 looks like it will be providing Sony with fiercer competition than anyone could have predicted 5 years ago. Still, there is one market where Microsoft has never been able to win – the computer mouse. Since 1981, Logitech has been producing the best mice on the planet. Logitech continues to outsell Microsoft and as most gamers can confirm, Logitech mice are virtually bullet proof. I have a Logitech mouse myself that's over 10 years old and is still running strong. Logitech's new G7 mouse is the best product to come out of Logitech's design team for some time.

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Summary

I spent the most time detailing the Logitech G7 and Monster Music SuperDisc because they're truly the best of the bunch. In fact, I would be just as happy in my Holiday Buyer's Guide talking about just those two products. There is no right-handed PC enthusiast who wouldn't enjoy using the Logitech G7 and no audiophile (who enjoys Christmas music) who wouldn't want to own "40 Years, A Charlie Brown Christmas."