The hottest gifts of the 2010 holiday season.
As a devoted follower of the gritty underbelly of internet deal seeking, I am here to offer you tips and tricks, hints and insights for the 2010 holiday shopping season. With the down economy I'm sure you'll hear people in CNBC and GMA talking about how the holiday shopping season will be worse than expected, and from the point of view of the stores, this will likely be true. There are plenty of unemployed folks out there and their ability to go out and buy new $700 iPads is definitely going to be limited.
But I also ran across and interesting statistic at a speaking event in early November. The rate of unemployment is between 4 and 5%, if you have a college degree. Now I realize there are plenty of people out there who are hurting, but occasionally the grim and dire focus of the news can obscure some of the bright points in the world. While the retailers might suffer as a result of this, a few lean years can be really good for a company, it can force them to consolidate their gains and refocus on their core products and demographics. This is really good for us as consumers. It means that retailers will be more willing to make deals and offers some serious enticements to get us into their store and keep us as customers.
I for one welcome a return to some lean times. For a while there it was too easy for companies like Best Buy or Apple to get consumers to buy their products. I want them to have to work for my dollars, at least a bit. And we would all benefit from a little flexibility on the part of Apple. On the one hand, I respect that a ,cheap laptop batteries, company has set a price for their products that accurately reflect the costs of production, but Apple also has behaviors that remind me of monopolistic practices. So it's hard to say if they're just an honest technology maker or if they're leveraging their must-have products off the back of the Apple fanboy set.
Anyway on to the hotness:
The iPad: This will be the first Christmas with iPad availability. I'm a bit ambivalent about the iPad, but I can see it being a great fit for a lot of people. I'm not convinced that tablets do anything more than a netbook and with the steep premium for the Apple logo, I remain unconvinced. Which is to say that I won't be hoping Santa brings me my very own iPad, but I can see why there are plenty of people who will want them. If you're not a laptop owner, but you use the hell out of your smartphone, then maybe an iPad is a natural extension for you. My biggest hesitation with respect to the tablet is I'm not sure if it replaces anything, or just makes my bag heavier.
The iPhone4: I must admit that I just bought a new iPhone4, my first iPhone! I was really on the fence about jumping from the VZW ship and signing onto team iPhone, but what tipped the balance for me was the Verizon iPhone. The extent to which there is a Verizon iPhone is that at some point in 2011, Verizon might get an iPhone, maybe. Moreover it will not be an iPhone5, it will essentially be the CDMA iPhone1. Apple is in the process of fundamentally redesigning the iPhone to be compatible with Verizon's older CDMA standard network. Remember all the issues that Apple and ATT ,dell laptop batteries, have had; do you think it will be different with Verizon? I always regret being an early adopter. You're inevitably better off waiting for V2.0, than rushing into what amounts to an extended Beta testing phase. Now I won't be alone in thinking this way and like the iPad, this is the first Xmas for the iPhone4. Also it looks sooo good. They really stepped it up with the aesthetics for the iPhone4 and the Retina Screen is so very crisp. (Wipes drool from chin) Moving on.
Digital Book Readers: I'm a big book reader, I think I've read more than 100 books in 2010, but I'm an analog book guy. I love turning pages, seeing my progress through a book as I read it. So I am not an e-reader candidate. But they're getting much better and much more popular. For the same reason that I like getting a 2nd or 3rd generation anything, I think now is the time to think about buying the Amazon Kindle or Sony's offering.
The Kindle by Amazon: This is turning into a very nice reading product. It's lightweight (only 8.5 ounces in the latest version), it has impressive battery life (up to 1 month if you're just reading books with the wi-fi off) and the screen interface is easy on the eyes. It's also hitting a very comfortable price point with 2 versions available under $200. The basic wi-fi only model at $139.00 and the 3G enabled device for $189.00. The Kindle DX has the big screen at 9.7" and the big price tag at $379.00.
One of my biggest hesitations with a digital book reader is that it is a one trick pony. I like my tech to be a swiss army knife. I'm hesitant to purchase something that can only ,hp laptop batteries, do one thing, unless it can do it really well. I think that the Kindle might do books well enough to justify the limited uses for the device. The Kindle can also deal better with PDFs, so you could use it for work or school.
A Note: I believe the best gifts are evergreen. They hold up to the test of time and they remain useful for more than just the next 6 months. So this is one of my main criteria for selecting items for this list. However, not everything on this list is evergreen and not all the gifts this holiday season should have to last for years to come. There should be one or two that are both good and brief.
Call of Duty Black Ops: Available for the PS3, Xbox360, Wii, and Windows, this is going to be one of the hot games for this season. The gameplay looks outstanding and is reviewing really well. Also I am a bit of a sucker for really clever advertising and the "There's a Soldier in All of US" ads are truly excellent. It really positions a game that might be viewed as a "boys game" to a wider audience and helps to expand the demographic appeal.
Blu-ray player with movie streaming: Again, I like to wait for a few iterations of new tech before I adopt it and I think Blu-ray is finally there. I'm not about to go out and replace all my DVDs with Blu-ray, but I am willing to pay the extra few dollars when I buy movies from now on. I recently got Netflix streaming hooked up through my television and it is excellent. Having Netflix is much smoother than hooking up a computer through the TV. Though the selection leaves a lot to be desired, it's great to be mkjhgfoers able to watch high quality movies on demand. Vudu is another streaming service that looks to have a better selection but at a steeper price. If you're willing to upgrade to Blu-ray you might as well kick in the extra $30 or so for a streaming service.
Netbooks: I'd love to recommend that people go and buy the new Macbook Air, but I can't do it. I'm sure it's a great computer that works well and is super light, and it's in the second generation, which meets my "wait for it" rule. But at 2-3 times the price of a comparable netbook, it's too steep of a premium for me.
I've tried to keep my list mostly gender neutral, although I realize it has a slight bias towards the masculine. However I will make a few recommendations for the women in your lives: Shoes and Handbags. That about exhausts that good advice I have on what to buy. But I have important cautions about what not to buy. DO NOT buy the appliance for Christmas. Even if you and your significant other have been talking about getting a chest freezer for a while now. Don't buy it for Christmas. Nothing says, "Honey, I think you should spend more time cooking for me" quite like an appliance. Trust me on this; make the front-loading washer/dryer a Thanksgiving gift if you want, keep the trips to home depot out of the Christmas holiday.
Christian Koch is an author and trained economist with over 7 years of experience analyzing and writing about financial markets. He also a technofile and amateur gadget enthusiast. His work is published in several places including the Buy N Sell Gold Blog.
Check out his personal blog: Mr. Christian
No comments:
Post a Comment