Topic: Hardware

Holiday Gift Guide 2011: Our 20 favorite tech gifts

Summary: What good is it to have the world's most seasoned line-up of product and IT experts if they can’t help you pick out holiday presents? With that in mind, we tapped our crack crew to help us help you find the year’s best tech gift ideas.

By ZDNet | October 26, 2011 -- 08:13 GMT (01:13 PDT)

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Jason Perlow, Tech Broiler: Why did I pick the Kindle Fire? It's simple, really. A $200 7" tablet computer that will take up much less space in my travel knapsack than my 10" iPad or Motorola XOOM, and gives me access to all my Kindle books and other Amazon content, not to mention many thousands of Android applications -- likely rivaling Google's own Android market by the middle of 2012. And with Amazon's curated Appstore for Android, you can be assured that all the software submitted to their own version of a "Walled Garden" will run perfectly on the device. There's no doubt in my mind this is going to be the hottest stocking stuffer for 2011. Note: Although the Kindle Fire won't be available until the second week in November, Amazon.com is taking prep-orders now - from U.S. customers only.

See: Amazon.com
Price: $199
Gift Pick by: Jason Perlow, Tech Broiler

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Topic: Hardware

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11 comments

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RE: Holiday Gift Guide 2011: Our 20 favorite tech gifts

I love Razer products, but the Switchblade UI is a mistake. Sure it's shiny and nice to show off to folks, but when doing, you know, gaming, it's horrible. It acts as a touchpad, but nobody would use one for gaming. It has an LCD for information, but you can't spare to look at your keyboard while gaming. It has specially programmable hotkeys, but you can't reach them because your hand should most definitely be on a mouse.

Aerowind
14 November, 2011 11:41

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RE: Holiday Gift Guide 2011: Our 20 favorite tech gifts

Too expensive thin laptops for Windows. You have to outsmart Apple, not catching up.

Netteligent
15 November, 2011 14:16

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RE: Holiday Gift Guide 2011: Our 20 favorite tech gifts

No more netbook, please. Apple iPAD and tablets are much more fun and productive.

Netteligent
15 November, 2011 14:21

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RE: Holiday Gift Guide 2011: Our 20 favorite tech gifts

WARNING: Avoid the Acer Aspire One! My workplace ordered over 100 of these and the quality control issues are rampant! Bad hard drives, shoddy keyboards, and even a few with bad displays (dead pixels/lines/color-issues). Couple that with Acer's WORST-in-the-industry customer support and I can't figure out why anyone would recommend these. Pick a different netbook! Try the Dell Mini, or get a tablet.

wr230746
16 November, 2011 07:26

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iPod? Really?!

Come on... I own an iPhone 4 and an iPad2, so I can ask this question. Why, for $199, would you recommend the iPod as a means for escaping data charges? For that price, you are tethered to a wifi connection for data... why not get a Kindle for the same price and a much larger screen is you don't mind having to rely on wifi for your data connection? The iPod's screen is just too small to be a tablet competitor. The iPhone has the same small screen, but that's much more acceptable on a TRULY mobile device such as a smartphone... especially since the retina display makes viewing things on the smaller screen much more enjoyable than its counterparts of the same dimensions.

vancevep
19 November, 2011 11:04

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woaw...

Dude, I'm jelaous if you can afford spending 1200 dollar on a Christmas gift. Really.

patibulo
20 November, 2011 00:50

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RE: Holiday Gift Guide 2011: Our 20 favorite tech gifts

I disagree with your posting on the BB9900. My droid pro has a great keyboard and a much bigger screen.

bmtman
23 November, 2011 12:51

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RE: Holiday Gift Guide 2011: Our 20 favorite tech gifts

Glad I'm not on your gift list, you are a cheap bugger.

Wman
24 November, 2011 15:38

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RE: Holiday Gift Guide 2011: Our 20 favorite tech gifts

The pic on your Coolmax PS-228 PSU tester is of a LAN tester - very useful for testing ethernet cables, but not PSUs!

robjthom
25 November, 2011 01:17

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Meh...Here's REAL INNOVATION, folks....

...the Orange OPC, the musician's computer...suck on this, Apple.

http://www.orangeopc.com/

Feldwebel Wolfenstool
27 November, 2011 18:10

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- RE: Holiday Gift Guide 2011: Our 20 favorite tech gifts
  
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  19 February, 2012 08:18
  
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