Davin O'Dwyerrounds up the hottest gift gizmos - from the iPhone to USB batteries - and scratches his head at one of the oddest.
SATNAV
Soon all phones, cars and probably watches will come with GPS satellite-navigation systems, but, until then, everyone who's prone to mixing up their lefts and their wests should look out for a direction-giving, face-saving portable GPS unit. TomTom belies its juvenile name to come up with some of the best machines in the business, with the TomTom (€260) being its bargain model. Another brand worth a look is Garmin, whose Nuvi 310 (€310
from Carphone Warehouse) offers wireless handsfree mobile-phone connectivity. So say goodbye to the peculiar adventure of getting lost - it's soon going to be a thing of the past.
APPLE iPHONE
"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic," Arthur C Clarke once said, and he might as well have been describing the iPhone, the long-awaited mobile from Apple that will go down as a revolution not just in mobile-phone technology but probably also in computing itself.
There's a reason it is Time magazine's invention of the year: its touch-screen technology leaves its competitors in the past, rendering their buttons as archaic as the rotary dial. The screen reacts to intuitive finger touches, moving images with a stroke, zooming in and out of web pages with a pinch. Much more than a phone, it also features a wi-fi, a camera, e-mail, YouTube and Google Maps - and, of course, it's also an amazing iPod.
The bad news - and it's very bad news - is that you can't get it here yet. As it has recently become available in the UK on the O2 network (for £269, or €375), the assumption is that it will surface on the company's Irish network sometime in the spring, but that is really just guesswork.
Unlocked versions will be available from France and Germany, but they will be prohibitively expensive, and some features will be crippled, so until then content yourself with the iPod Touch and a rival phone.
OTHER MOBILE PHONES
Although the iPhone is the best in show, has been using its vast experience to churn out models faster than 15-year-olds can text. The real competitor, in terms of features, is the N95 (from €309), the Swiss army knife of handsets. Packed with an eight-gigabyte drive (space for enough tunes to satisfy a radio station for a day or two), a superb five-megapixel camera (check out the N95 stream on the photograph-sharing site Flickr to see the quality of the images it can take) and a host of productivity software, the N95 is an attractive phone, albeit one with a fast-draining battery.
Nokia has also just released its internet tablet N810 (about €290 online), a sort of palm-sized computer with slide-out keyboard. Not a phone, as such, but it does allow Skype calls, and its open-source software means gadget freaks will be getting it to do all sorts of trickery in no time.
The touch-screen technology seen on the iPhone will be replicated on a variety of iClones down the line: the fashion conscious can now avail of the LG Prada (€349 on O2), and the just-announced LG Voyager VX 10000 looks set to pack in a lot more features, combining both a touch screen and a flip-open keypad with a second LCD screen. What network it will surface on, and when, are again matters of speculation.
Sony Ericsson has a bevy of Walkman-branded phones, the snazziest of which is the stainless-steel W880i (from €89), which, at 9.4mm, is nearly as skinny as a table cracker. Be warned, though: the number buttons are itsy-bitsy slivers of metal, adding a fresh challenge to texting, and the battery will offer about five hours of music play, so it's not going to replace your primary MP3 player in a rush. But it's got style in spades.
MUSIC PLAYERS
We may be deprived of the iPhone's touchy greatness, but if you must flick through your cover art with a lazy stroke of your index finger, there is an alternative: the iPod Touch (€299 for 8gb or €399 for 16gb) - basically the iPhone without the phone (or e-mail, calendar, Google Maps or camera). At 16GB, it has twice the memory of the iPhone, making it perfect for storing a few movies and TV shows for the commute. A great multimedia machine, it offers the best mobile internet experience around, but otherwise it suffers from being the iPhone's less talented sibling.
Many people will probably decide to hold out until the iPhone arrives - or plump for the mega-capacity iPod Classic, which now comes in behemoth (80GB, €249) and Godzilla (160GB, €349) sizes, offering much better value in terms of the number of songs in your pocket.
If your pockets struggle to fit a matchbox, however, maybe you should look at the iPod Nano (€149 for 4gb or €199 for 8gb). The latest version looked, at first glance, a good degree uglier than its long, elegant predecessor. But in the hand it is a thing of real beauty, with surprisingly capable video output to boot. Expect it to be in Christmas stockings all over the country.
Creative players once lagged behind the iPod in looks and usability, but they have made a leap, with the stylish Zen Stone Plus reinforcing its place as the second most popular manufacturer behind Apple. The Stone Pluses are tremendous value, boasting a small screen, a radio and a 2GB memory for €69 (the cheaper Zen Stone comes without a screen or radio), compared with €79 for a screenless, radioless iPod Shuffle with half the capacity.
MUSIC-PLAYER ACCESSORIES
iPod speaker systems tend to adhere to a simple formula: stick an iPod dock in some really curvy or really angular plastic and boast that it's a piece of modern art. Harmon/Kardon, Bose and JBL have made some of the most desirable, but Griffin's's new wireless system, Evolve (about €300 online), really pushes the envelope. Simply dock your iPod between the two speaker boxes for a conventional speaker setup or - and this is where the magic starts - lift either speaker box off its cradle and leave anywhere you want for effortless wireless stereo. Fancy bringing your tunes outside on a sunny day, or want to get some music in the kitchen? Just pick up the speakers and bring them with you - no need to worry about wires. The accompanying remote control is just as talented, and it will work from anywhere; you don't need to point it at the system. And, yes, it does look like (functional) modern art.
USBCells (about €20 a pair) are ingeniously designed rechargeable AA batteries that get their juice through a USB connection rather than a mains-attached recharging unit. Simply flip up the positive end of the battery to reveal the USB connection, then pop it into a USB port on your computer to charge the battery. An LED tells you when it's ready to go. Available from www.firebox.com.
Gear4's's BluEye (about €80) is probably the best iPod accessory around. It plugs into an iPod and communicates with your Bluetooth-enabled phone, allowing you to answer your calls through the BluEye's earphones and controller rather than having to switch between iPod and phone. It also supports voice-activated dialling, adds an FM radio to your iPod and acts as a remote. What's more, caller ID pops up on your iPod's display, letting you pretend you're carrying only one device rather than two.
Mophie's Bevy (about €15) is one of the oddest iPod cases around, but its multidisciplinary approach is so wacky that it works. It shields an iPod Shuffle from scratches, offers a convenient earbud-wrapping groove, so your wires won't get crossed, functions as a stylish key fob, and also works as a bottle opener. For beer-swilling music fans everywhere, the Bevy is the only option.
DIGITAL CAMERAS
The market is looking as crowded as ever this year, with all manufacturers selling models that share essential features and ridiculously complicated names. The easiest way to pick a model is to choose what size you want and what you're willing to pay. If you want a small, portable camera that will take good photographs both at raucous parties and on beautiful country walks, then all makers have good compact models. Canon's Ixus range sets the standards all others are measured by, and has prices to match, but stylewise its line-up is beginning to look a little plain compared to the competition.
The Canon Ixus 75 (€225) has seven megapixels, which offers plenty of resolution for most people, and a decent level of control over settings. The Panasonic Lumix range has grown up this year with the FX33 (€273) and (€273), which on top of eight megapixels and face-recognition technology (which helps to focus, apparently, rather than putting a name to the people in your photographs), comes in a variety of colours. Sometimes the simple things count for a lot.
A special word must go to the Casio Exilim range, which is simultaneously the best value, the easiest to use and, possibly, the most stylish. A load of presets take the guesswork out of getting the settings right in any situation, and yes, the models come in a variety of colours, so you can get one to match all your outfits. The Exilim Zoom EX-Z75 (seven megapixels, €129), (a whopping 12 megapixels, €249) and EX-S880 (you guessed it: eight megapixels, €209) all do enough to make you forget about the naff digital watches Casio made its name with.
If you're going to be getting into digital photography in a big way, then splashing the cash on a midrange digital or on an SLR is the way to go, but you should investigate thoroughly beforehand - www.dpreview.com is one of the best resources on the net for camera reviews. The Canon Powershot G9 (€478) offers a good degree of control in its retro-styled body; the Canon Eos 400D (or Digital Rebel XTi as it is known in some territories, €659) and the Olympus E-510 (€685) are the top dogs in the low-end-SLR category. Either will hook you on photography for life, and you'll end up yearning for outrageously expensive lenses every Christmas.
GAME SYSTEMS
Sony's PlayStation 3 (€416 on Pixmania) wasn't available in time for Christmas last year, but despite its huge processing power it hasn't a chance of competing with the already iconic Nintendo Wii (€270 from Argos), supplies of which still haven't been able to keep up with demand more than a year after release.
Microsoft's Xbox 360 (€370 from Argos), meanwhile, has been suffering from widespread technical difficulties, principally the notorious "red ring of death", which sounds more like a video-game title than a hardware glitch, but more recent models are apparently more reliable.
If you want your games with you at all times, you can choose between the dual-touchscreen Nintendo DS Lite (€150 from Smyths, HMV, Argos and other outlets) - boosting your brain power with the much-touted Brain Training (€30, as above), in much the same way that Nicole Kidman is paid to do - or go for the more powerful Sony PSP (€180, as above), now skinnier and lighter than ever. Watching these two duke it out will probably evoke memories of Tekken.
A GADGET WE CAN'T UNDERSTAND
Books, it has often been observed, are perfect pieces of technology: they don't run out of power; they can be read virtually anywhere; they can be loaned to friends, resold or given away; you don't have to worry about compatibility; they have a long lifespan when kept in the right conditions; and they look darn good on bookshelves. About the worst thing that can be said of them is that they take up space.
Amazon's highly trumpeted e-book reader, the Kindle, improves on books in no way whatsoever except that it takes up considerably less space than the average personal library. All told, the high price tag ($400, or €270), proprietary file format, inexcusably dated, ugly design and the fact that you can only buy books for it from Amazon rather than from your friendly local bookseller make it a suitable purchase only if you are being driven to the brink of dementia by your overcrowded bookshelves. So far it's available only in the US, but don't be surprised if its design changes drastically before it surfaces in these parts. On this evidence, the book ain't going anywhere for a long time.
Where we have given prices from Pixmania.ie, bear in mind that delivery starts at about €13