Ecologic
6 DAB clock radio £69.99
Most of us need some sort of device to wake us up in time for work in the
mornings. Few of us think about how much electricity our clock radios might
be sucking up even when they’re not actually active. Green gadgeteers will
be pleased to hear that power consumption is kept to a minimum by this
device. Extreme green gadgeteers will be thrilled to see that there are four
separate alarms, for those wintry nights when they’re minimising their
carbon footprint by sleeping four to a bed.
Slingbox
Pro £159.99
The Slingbox has been around for a few years now, but this latest version adds
all the little extra touches that users of the original unit have been
lobbying for. Although TV tuners can be added to laptops and even mobile
phones these days, the necessarily tiny aerials generally restict reception
to only the strongest broadcast signals and, of course, they cannot receive
satellite broadcasts. The Slingbox circumvents these issues by diverting
whatever TV you receive at home to wherever you are. Gadget addicts will
delight in watching Sky Sports in a holiday cottage while the rest of you
are out on a healthy family walk. Just because they can.
Wattson £99.95
With a houseful of gadgets it can sometimes be hard to keep a lid on power
consumption. The Wattson monitors your electricity supply to measure just
how much juice that shiny new plasma screen is sucking down. More
importantly, the rather stylish wireless monitor doubles as a conversation
piece / ambient mood light so you will have ample opportunities to remind
people just how eco-friendly you are.
Flip
Video Mino £114
Most modern mobile phones can record some sort of video, but sometimes you
want a little more quality while keeping the portability. Bundled software
makes uploading the results to YouTube or MySpace almost instant. It’s a
gift that will pay for itself as soon as the first priceless mishap has been
e-mailed to You’ve Been Framed.
BeBook £229
There are at least a half dozen e-Book readers on the market at the moment,
all practically indistinguishable in terms of feature set and, in many
cases, appearance. The BeBook scores, though, with its neat, intuitive
operating system and smooth rapid page turn that quickly lets you forget you
have a high-tech gadget in your hands. A huge library of classic books
bundled with the reader sweetens the deal considerably.
ACS Custom Fit earphones
£499
Every modern MP3 player comes with a medium-quality set of earphones that
don’t sound too terrible and fall out whenever you run or nod your head too
vigorously. Most users soon upgrade to a premium set that sound a bir better
and don’t fall out quite so readily. The ACS phones sound astonishingly
clean and clear and – because they’re moulded to the individual user’s ear,
never fall out. Arriving in a rock & roll hard case they’re a perfect
gift for audiophiles, serious runners, or people who nod their heads a lot.
Stylophone
£14.99
Anyone over 40 can remember this reedy-sounding pocket synthesizer. Whether it
was David Bowie or Rolf Harris that brought the Stylophone to your
attention, there’s no doubt that you regard it with a nostalgic wonderment
that’s honestly out of all proportion to its actual musical virtue.
Nevertheless, as an executive toy/ironic hipster totem, it will be welcome
on any office worker’s desk and, you never know, might just reawaken a
long-buried musical talent. Play
one here
MyVu Crystal £229.99
The ubiquity of devices like the iPhone means that most gadget addicts have
some sort of movie-capable device in their travelling bag of wonders. The
modest screen size of the iPhone and its imitators might be fine for
dialogue-driven art house gems but when you’re watching an effects-driven
blockbuster the action can be a little confused and underwhelming. That’s
where MyVu’s video glasses come in. Like headphones for your eyes, they
deliver a widescreen experience to the privacy of your own eyesockets. We
featured an earlier model of these last year, but the gadget fiend in your
life is bound to have bought an iPhone since then so they’ll be aching for
an upgrade to this iPhone-compatible version.
Asus Eee Top £399
Their micro laptops were the tech sensation of the year and now Asus has gone
one better by producing a desktop version that sacrifices some (although not
quite all) of its predecessor’s portability but gains a bigger screen and
(wonder of wonders!) a touch screen. At this price point it would be too
much to ask for a turbocharged gaming machine but for web browsing and a
little word processing the Eee Top is more than adequate. The touch screen
is more than a gimmick too; kids and grannies alike will quickly warm to the
intuitive method of navigating the web.
Samsung
YA-BS900 Bluetooth speaker system £89.99
An unobtrusively stylish desktop speaker system that wirelessly streams music
from your mobile phone in your pocket, and is savvy enough to mute its own
sound when a call comes in. There is scarcely an office or study in these
fair islands that would not be enhanced by this clever, and
reasonably-priced, little wonder.
Will you buy that on your credit card?
Robert Fosse, North Piddle,
A home safe to lock your credit and store cards in then throw away the key.
albert hall, hove, england