Top 10 best tech presents for Christmas

The holiday season approaches and it's time for the gift giving to begin. So what are the best things to find under the tree for the technologically minded?

The Christmas season can be a minefield for the techy. There are so many gadgets and gizmos out there that it's easy to make the wrong gift choice, or receive something useless from a non-tech friend or relative.

In any list there's an element of personal bias, and in this case it's in the Honourable Mentions, where Shaun and I picked something we really really wanted. The rest of the list is full of what we think you'd like. Feel free to share the link with those you will be receiving gifts from.

One final note. By using the term 'Christmas' we are in no way joining the pointless debate currently raging in some quarter of the US over the so-called 'War against Christmas'. Almost every culture celebrates the ending of the year because it means that sunny days are ahead. Let's enjoy it for what it is: a time to share with family and friends.

Honourable Mention: Powermat
Shaun Nichols: At last year's Consumer Electronics Show I saw an early demo of the Powermat system and came away impressed, so when the first models started to appear in stores this one was a no-brainer to add to the list.

If you're not familiar with the Powermat system, it is a small mat surface which is used to provide wireless power to up to three devices, either through the bundled Powercube charger device or other handsets equipped with special adaptors.

It's a nice way to save space and reduce tangled messes of power cords, but it's also a pretty cool-looking piece of gear, and who isn't a sucker for that sort of thing? A slick, glowing mat device definitely looks better on a desk or shelf than regular adaptors with the attendant mass of cables.

Iain Thomson: Wireless power is certainly the wave of the future and the Powermat is a very good bit of kit, but it is an interim measure.

To explain. Various manufacturers are using wireless power to charge devices, most notably the Palm Pre. But many of them have recognised that there needs to be a common standard across devices, and are working on this. In the meantime you have the Powermat.

The product neatly gets around the problem by charging a battery and allowing devices to connect to that. It's a good hack for a situation where the mass manufacturing base is playing catch up.

One thing would hold me back from this, however. I'm a nut for power conservation and my understanding is that wireless power is less efficient than its wired counterpart. I'd like to see some hard data on the environmental consequences of this before making a purchase.

Honourable Mention: Solar charger
Iain Thomson: Electronics is a mucky business for the planet, and it's nice to know you are doing what you can to put something back.

Manufacturers are at last cottoning on to the fact that people might want to charge their devices by something other than a power socket. You can now buy an array of solar powered chargers which help keep your gadgets topped up with juice.

These range from fold out solar panels that can be put on a sunny spot, to backpacks with the panels built onto the outside that charge the devices you are carrying. At the same time, solar power efficiency is increasing in leaps and bounds, so be on the lookout for new products.

No-one is pretending that you can run all your gadgets off solar power. The amount of juice you collect is tiny, but it all adds up. Fewer recharges from the mains is always useful, and you never know when an extra 10 minutes of battery life can be crucial. Yes, these things cost carbon to produce, but there's such a thing as setting an example.

Shaun Nichols: It used to be that we would have put batteries in this spot on the list, but the times have changed. Not only are more and more manufacturers using rechargeable battery packs, but disposable batteries contain all sorts of nasty materials that can be pretty hazardous to the environment.

To that end, solar chargers are becoming very popular. Taking power from the sun is just about the cleanest way you can generate power for a device, and the falling cost and rising efficiency of solar cells is making the technology accessible to a much wider range of devices and price points.

There's also the economic side. Disposable batteries add up after a short time, and sunlight is more or less plentiful for most locations and free for the entire planet. As Iain noted, we're not quite to the point where you can recharge your smartphone by leaving it on the windowsill for an hour, but that day will come.

10. The IT Crowd box set
Shaun Nichols: Since his arrival in the US, Iain has been steadily introducing me to the UK's finest TV programmes. From classics such as Red Dwarf and Spaced, to quirky shows like Man Stroke Woman and Green Wing, it has been a steady stream of great entertainment.

My very favourite, however, has been The IT Crowd. The show's brilliant skewering of internet culture and solid stream of tech jokes make it rival anything on television from either side of the pond.

For the Christmas season, you can get a special box-set edition of the first three seasons of the show. If you're in the UK and have friends from abroad travelling in for the holidays, do them a huge favour and get this for them.

Iain Thomson: Not that much of a favour Shaun, since Hollywood has decreed that DVDs bought in the UK won't play in the US. So much for global entertainment.

That said, The IT Crowd is a joy for anyone involved in the technology industry. Moss and Roy have few equals as stereotypes, and the parodies of management are a joy to behold, with Chris Morris showing his usual genius. If you watch the shows you can see a surprising amount of good quality old tech in the background, as these set designers know their stuff.

Now, I don't want you to get the idea that Shaun and I sit there in Reynholm Industries tshirts exchanging quotes from the series as we work; we save that for the pub afterwards. But I defy anyone with an interest in the field not to at least get a kick out of some of the episodes, not least for the IT support answer phone that has the timeless recorded message: 'Have you tried turning it off then on again?'

9. MicroSD
Iain Thomson: There's something fascinating about a gadget as tiny as a MicroSD card. Getting up to 16GB of storage on something no bigger than your little finger nail is a technological marvel.

When you think about how impressed we used to be with floppy drives, or even standard USB stick drives that would store thousands of megabytes of data, the MicroSD format is somewhat galling to old-timers in the industry.

Nevertheless, they are incredibly useful devices. Their size makes them perfect for key rings and allows you to carry around important or frequently used data, or allow you to transfer files quickly between computers.

However, bear in mind that titchy technology has a habit of getting lost. If you are carrying around important information then encrypt or password-protect it. You should also put in a little .rtf file containing your contact information called 'Owner details - reward offered' in case you lose it.

Shaun Nichols: Remember when you were a kid and mom thoughtfully tossed a few packs of batteries into your stocking to power all of the cool new toys you were hoping to receive? Well, a MicroSD card is a lot like that, but for grown-up geeks.

The cards have become the preferred mode of removable storage for everything from mobile phones to digital cameras to video game consoles, and if there's one thing we can all use, it's more storage for photos, games and music.

If you're stumped on what to get the geek in your life this holiday season, a MicroSD card is a safe bet. It may not be the biggest, shiniest or most glamorous present, but it will definitely be appreciated and put to good use.

8. DDR3 memory
Shaun Nichols: Short of engineers and high-end gaming enthusiasts, few people appreciate the value of speedy memory, but opening up this bottleneck can give a good boost to your overall performance.

Even the highest-end systems will be limited if you have one pokey component gumming up the works. DDR3 memory adds not only faster performance and higher capacity, but decreased power consumption and a wider range of operating temperatures.

Like hard drive space, you can't really have too much memory, and sooner or later that extra RAM is going to get some use. Adding DDR3 memory can help those high-end systems run even better. It may sound a bit strange, but this year, why not give the gift of RAM?

Iain Thomson: OK, so my suggestion of the gift of RAM was a tad on the geeky side, but I'm sure there's someone out there hoping for just such a gift.

I'm a firm believer in the adage that you can never have to much RAM. That said, there are a couple of things to be wary of.

Firstly DDR3 is predominantly a gift for the Intel platform user, since AMD is waiting until the price of the chips comes down before seriously committing to the market. Secondly the cost of being an early adopter is high, for the moment at least.

If you're using a mainstream operating system like Windows 7 you need to bulk out on the RAM as much as possible, and that goes double if you are into audio or video content creation. The demand is certainly there; the barman of my local has a very profitable sideline in building high-RAM systems in his spare time.

7. Next-generation games consoles
Iain Thomson: Consoles are the idea gift for both kids and adults at Christmas. You're cooped up inside for several days under stressful circumstances with people you know too well. Playing a computer game together is a useful way to dissolve arguments before they happen.

This didn't used to be the case, but the Wii in particular has evolved into something that appeals to the whole family. The first time this really struck me was when my 67 year old godmother asked for a games cartridge for Christmas a couple of years back. True, it wasn't Grand Theft Auto but that's no bad thing. Given her competitive streak she'd have left Liberty City as a smoking hole in the ground.

Increasingly consoles are being used for wannabe guitar heroes and rock band members. This is no bad thing and is just a modern version of board games or jigsaw puzzles. But it's hard to remember this when you see an elderly relative's gurning expression as he seeks to relive the glory days of Led Zeppelin.

Shaun Nichols: It used to be that video game consoles were just for kids but, as the gaming market has matured, the newer consoles can get even grown-up geeks excited, though maybe not quite as much as when they were younger.

The online and entertainment aspect has become a selling point in particular. Both vendors and studios have made great strides in bringing streaming video services to consoles, and the ability to play Blu-ray movie discs has been a major selling point for the PlayStation 3 in particular.

If you're looking to channel the inner-gamer for those around you, there's also the Nintendo Wii, which has been a huge hit as a family and casual gaming device, so much so that we recently listed it among our list of essential holiday gear.

6. Solid-state hard drives
Shaun Nichols: One of the most interesting technologies to emerge in recent years has been the solid-state hard drive (SSD).

Based on Flash memory chips rather than spinning platters, SSDs have a number of advantages over conventional drives, particularly in the areas of seek and startup times. They also require less power and are believed by some to have a far longer life.

While SSDs used to be limited to high-end systems or servers, the technology is moving into the wider consumer space and companies are now offering upgrade kits. Vendors are hoping that users will begin to look at the use of SSDs and see what all the fuss is about.

One area where SSDs still struggle, however, is capacity. While prices have dropped, a decent sized SSD is still much more expensive than a conventional drive, so if you're the type that likes to keep a large archive, you may not want to toss out that old drive just yet.

Iain Thomson: SSDs may have been around for a few years but they are only now becoming the kind of thing you can rely on.

Initially they weren't too fast, as several manufacturers just ported their existing I/O configurations to the new drives, rather than rewriting them completely. This slowed speeds down considerably.

Then there were a rash of product failures. The manufacturing processes behind the drives is still catching up with demand, and I have my doubts about some of the reliability figures being quoted.

All that said, however, I'm still sorely tempted by one of these. Startup times are a huge problem for those impatient to hit the keyboard, and anything that speeds the process up is most welcome.

5. Terabyte drives
Iain Thomson: It's only been this year that we've really been able to buy a drive capable of storing a terabyte of data, and it still boggles the mind that such things can now be bought over the counter.

SSDs may be the fastest drives on the block but, if you're dealing with a serious amount of data, you can't beat a good old-fashioned platter drive. Treat one properly and it should be storing stuff for years, and even if it fails the data is recoverable, at a price.

Such large drives also rank high on the Christmas list for another reason. Almost no-one reading this will be fully backed up when it comes to their data. The Christmas rest period could be very profitably used gathering up those wisps of far-flung data and putting them somewhere easily accessible.

We're also seeing USB versions of terabyte drives, although I'm less sold on these. Until USB 3.0 becomes more common it'll take most of the holidays to get a full terabyte of data onto such a drive using USB 2.0.

Shaun Nichols: If there's one thing men like, it's more power. Whether it's tools, cars or computers, present a man with more powerful hardware and he's likely to stare in wonder while grunting like Tim Allen.

To that end, there's the terabyte hard drive. Once very high-end, the massive hard disks have dropped in price to be accessible to the rest of us. It used to be that a full terabyte of data was a ridiculous amount of storage that no one person would need, but the rise in HD video, larger applications and system back-ups has made it entirely possible to require a full terabyte of storage space.

As with the SD cards, storage may not be the most glamorous gift, but it's definitely something that will get used. Nobody's ever complained about having too much storage space on their system, and not having a fair amount of open hard drive room can slow system performance.

4. Kindle
Shaun Nichols: When the Kindle first came out I was pretty sceptical. Why would you need to carry a ton of books on a single device when paperbacks are the same size and you only read one book at a time?

But the Kindle has done well in the market, and it looks like the e-book reader may be here to stay. One key to its success has been the growth of wireless data networks and web-based services. Publishers have made it easier to log on to an online store and purchase new titles cheaply and easily.

Additionally, publishers are looking to offer periodicals and news subscriptions for the devices. It's one thing to not have to carry around a 300-page book, but it's another to avoid lugging around two or three magazines and a couple of newspapers.

It will be interesting to see how the market develops in the coming year, but right now Amazon has an excellent offering with the Kindle.

Iain Thomson: Few things can beat the feel of a good book in your hand: the smell of the paper, the feel of the pages as you turn them over and the creased front page that tells of a well-loved read.

That said, physical books have one big disadvantage: they weigh a lot in relation to the data they contain. If you can get through a book every few days on holiday then carrying enough for a fortnight's trip can literally be a pain in the neck.

So an e-book reader is a great idea in some respects, and Amazon has done a very good job of kick-starting the market. Sony and others have also joined in and I fear that my dream of retiring to run a second-hand bookshop is looking increasingly outdated.

If you are asking Santa for an e-book reader this year, the Kindle is a good bet, but it's worth checking the other models out there. Also read the terms and conditions carefully. Quite a few Kindle users were shocked when Amazon removed books from their devices, something it has since apologised for at a price.

3. Palm Pre
Iain Thomson: If Palm had followed through on the promise initially shown by the Palm Pre, this handset would be at the top of the list now, rather than third.

The Palm Pre is an amazing bit of kit and has a lovely design that manages to combine a hardware keyboard with a large touch-screen. It's got all the right connections and add-ons and, while the battery life is a bit disappointing, it's still very much fit for purpose.

Where Palm has dropped the ball is in developer support. While there are perfectly good Palm apps out there, they are few in number, especially when put up against the iPhone. Developer support was key to Palm's early success but it has forgotten that developers want to make money and iPhone and Android apps are where the game is being played at the moment.

It may be this year that Palm sorts its act out and gets the Pre and its vital developer support right. If so, then you have a great little handset, albeit with a two-year locked contract. If Palm doesn't sort itself out, you have a different kind of gift - the last gasp of one of the computer world's once big players that will become a piece of history.

Shaun Nichols: OK, so it may not be the hot commodity it was touted as earlier this year, but if you want a sleek, well-designed smartphone and you don't want to go the iPhone route, the Palm Pre is a decent choice.

When it was first unveiled at CES, the Pre actually received a standing ovation. The unique WebOS and slide-out screen were major selling points, and some suggested that the Pre could rival or even top the iPhone in summer and holiday sales.

That didn't happen and, while analysts aren't particularly optimistic about the Pre's long-term future, it's still a decent device that has some very good selling points. If you're a Sprint customer in the US it can be particularly attractive as you will not have to switch to AT&T in order to use it.

2. Motorola Droid
Shaun Nichols: It seems like for the past year we have seen an endless parade of devices which hope to stack up with the iPhone, only to fall short in the eyes of consumers.

The Motorola Droid, however, may be the strongest challenger to the iPhone's crown yet. The Android-powered device sports a laundry list of selling points, including a physical keyboard, removable battery and, in the US, a larger 3G network than the competition (as carrier Verizon loves to point out.)

Droid could also have an advantage in the application space, as Google's Android store is aiming to be far more inclusive and liberal about content than Apple is with its App Store.

Still, it's hard to say that any smartphone can go toe-to-toe with the iPhone in the consumer market right now. Perhaps Droid can finally break through and woo consumers from Apple, but I'm not going to believe it until I see it.

Iain Thomson: Well, Droid has a lot of buzz in the market right now, and a visit to the Verizon shop in San Francisco saw many consumers eager to buy, but is it enough one wonders?

At first look Apple looks to have the whip hand, and that's certainly the case at the moment. But Droid has something Apple doesn't: the affection of developers. Apple developers are getting increasingly fractious about the way they are treated, with applications held up or even rejected for no other reason than Apple says so.

Android, on the other hand, is a much more open system, and because of that it's gaining an increasing amount of support among the development community. Having tried out an Android phone earlier this year I can tell you that you'll find a lot of good apps out there.

The Droid is a good first attempt at the iPhone crown, but the two-model split is a bad idea and Motorola needs to decide which market it is aiming at. That said, it's a very impressive effort.

1. iPhone
Iain Thomson: Once we've compiled the Top 10 lists we then get to sort out who writes what. This is usually a simple coin toss for odds versus evens and, when I got the odd-numbered column, Shaun had a distinctly sly grin on his face.

I've boycotted the iPhone from the start, since a closed system controlled by Apple that locks you into a two-year contact is not how I roll. Plus, iPhone users were so bloody smug about the things in the early days that it turned me right off. This must make me the only technology journalist in the Bay Area who doesn't use one.

But, like it or not, the iPhone is still the gadget of choice for many techies. Its design was pretty revolutionary on release and improvements have been made since. The range of applications available dwarfs the competition, just as iTunes dominates the download market. And it's very pretty.

You have to admire the way Apple has taken a basic set of components and stretched them to the absolute limit. Nokia has nothing to match it, and the other manufacturers' touch-screen phones look like knock-off Apple products.

The next year is going to be very interesting for the iPhone's future. Apple had never been a mass-market vendor before the iPod, and it's going to be interesting to see how the product develops. If Apple chooses the mass-market approach, we may not see it on the top spot next year. If it stays exclusive I'd expect it to remain very high indeed.

Shaun Nichols: For two years running the iPhone has topped our list of hot geek gifts, and with good reason.

Apple's smartphone is becoming something of a cultural icon and the recent updates to the handset and its App Store have caused the developer community around the iPhone to explode. Everything from games to productivity applications to commercial services is available, giving the iPhone an appeal with a huge range of users.

The IT world is notorious for its high turnover and short life spans of devices. It is rather amazing then that the iPhone has been able to absolutely dominate the headlines ever since it was first introduced at the Macworld Expo in 2007.

This year the headlines surrounding the iPhone's carriers have managed to make it an even more intriguing gift idea. Many of the exclusive contracts Apple signed with carriers when the device was first hitting the market are set to expire, and users may soon find themselves with a much wider selection of carriers which support the iPhone.