Tech Gifts for the Holidays

MrCopilot pointed out that every year there are a slew of gadgets geeks desire for Christmas, and approximately 7 million web pages dedicated to compiling lists of them. So why shouldn't we join in the fun. Here are stories from Dallas News, CBS News, Seattle Times, E Media Wire, Detroit News and MSNBC. So lets take a crack at your own list. There's still another day or two where things could conceivably be shipped on time for the holidays. I highly recommend Rock Band, although my aching hands might disagree.

Comments

Some of us are celebrating festivus

[VMaN]

.... you insensitive clod :)

Re:Some of us are celebrating festivus

[vil3nr0b]

That's right and those of us celebrating festivus want that fucking laser from Boeing.

Re:Some of us are celebrating festivus

[gEvil (beta)]

I would celebrate Festivus, but those damn poles are too expensive...

Re:Some of us are celebrating festivus

[Anonymous Coward]

Mark above as troll. It is a link to some info gathering farm: "gotcha: MyMiniCity is designed to capture information from all its visitors. thank you for your participation."

Almost anything from ThinkGeek

[Selfbain]

If you gave me a 10k gift certificate for ThinkGeek, I bet I could spend it.

Hand-Brain coordination

[starglider29a]

My kid is a genetic gamer, with Controller Thumb to prove it. I wanted to give him a gift which would allow him to use his hand-skills and yet challenge his brain.

I gave him a slide rule.

Re:Hand-Brain coordination

[still_sick]

I wanted to give him a gift which would allow him to use his hand-skills and yet challenge his brain.

Buy him some Playboys, but cut the naughty bits out of all the pictures.

Re:My Pick for geek toy... CyBook Gen3!

[eln]

The e-book thing is an idea that simply refuses to die. Every couple of years, we get more hype about it, but it's never really gotten that far. My personal take on it is that it's a solution looking for a problem. An e-book reader is not really any more convenient to carry around than a paperback book, and is less durable. The only real advantage is the ability to carry around your entire library with you, but so far that hasn't been enough to overcome the disadvantages inherent in reading for extended periods of time from a small electronic device.

Please don't turn /. into digg.

[dotancohen]

What I want for christmas:
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What the hell is with these top-* lists?

Pretty high prices

[blueskatz]

Every year, I see these lists and I wonder, do most people really spend that much on a single Christmas gift? I'm sorry, but I'm not buying anyone a $2500 self-tuning electric guitar (CBS list), or a new $2299 Apple iMac (MSNBC list) or even a $400 iPhone this holiday season. I swear these lists must be created by retailers or someone trying to convince you that you have to go all out and spend all your savings every Christmas, just so your friends and family will love you.

At least some of these lists are surprisingly decent - the Dallas and Detroit ones are actually pretty reasonable - accessories for your friends and family that already bought their gadgets. Now those make good gift items.

Re:CHEAP ebook readers?

[Anonymous Coward]

JuiceBox -- http://myvogonpoetry.com/wp/index.php?p=57

http://www.teleread.org/blog/2005/06/02/the-12-e-book-reader/

My list

[hcdejong]

Hydrodynamic building set
Chaos tower

Engadget Has...

[ack154]

Gift guides for most of the family.

I think they're still working on one or two more. Not sure.

Go green, skip the gadgets

[athloi]

1. Buy gadget
2. Replace batteries
3. Watch it break down
4. Attempt to fix
5. ???
6. Profit (for the person who sold it)
7. Massive unrecycled waste (your gift to planet earth)

Good ideas: plants, books, tools, Slashdot membership, backrubs, fruit, nuts, candy wrapped in paper.

This holiday is about loving your family, go be with them, instead of working extra hours to buy them plastic crap you won't even remember in two years!

Re:Rock Band?

[UncleTogie]

Do you really want to have to listen to your kid trying to learn how to play a real instrument?

Heaven forbid we actually encourage a real-life artistic skill.

Skill takes practice. Get 'em an electric guitar... with an ear monitor.

Re:For the gamers

[Kohath]

I can help with this.

How can you say that either game is "more awesome" than the other?

You just say it. It helps if you actually have that opinion, but it's not really necessary.

You're comparing apples and oranges.

Apples are better than oranges. Oranges are too sugary and the non-juice parts of the orange are more-or-less pointless. Oranges are really a drink, whereas apples are a food. And, as a drink, oranges are too sugary and don't contain adequate caffeine. When apples are made into a drink, they're actually worse than orange juice though.

You also have to buy the good apples. Discount apples have little taste.

I would recommend Rock Band to anyone with more than two friends.

Does God count as a friend?