Top gear for the techie in your life
Part two of our festive gift guide brings us into the mid-priced zone
THERE’S still a lot of hi-tech gear to be had under the £300-mark – and here we have selected some of the best for you to look at.
AMAZON FIRE TV CUBE
THE Fire TV Cube is Amazon’s most sophisticated TV set-top box, and the only one to offer complete hands-free voice control. That means there’s no need to suffer the outrageous inconvenience of pressing buttons on your remote
– just tell it what you want to watch and it’ll show you.
It’s also the most powerful Fire device, ensuring the output of exceptional video (4K Ultra HD) and audio (Dolby Atmos Audio) and a smooth user experience all round.
■ £109.99 from Amazon (amazon.co.uk)
APPLE WATCH SE 44MM
THE Apple Watch Series 6 might offer the widest range of features, but the much cheaper SE offers all the ones you really want.
The main ones missing from the budget Apple smartwatch are the always-on display, the blood oxygen monitor, and the EGC capabilities.
Other than that it’s the same superfast, ideal, wellbeing companion – it can monitor fitness and activity, keep you in touch with your nearest and dearest, and it tells the time…
Coming soon, too, is Apple’s Fitness+ programme, a whole host of video workouts that work with Apple Watch to help you stay in the best possible shape.
■ £299 from Apple (apple.com/uk), or from £22/month with no upfront cost from Vodafone (vodafone. co.uk). Fitness+ launches on Monday and costs £9.99 a month.
GOOGLE NEST HUB MAX
THE Google Nest Hub Max is the search giant’s most versatile smart home speaker. It can do it all – first there’s access to the Google Assistant and all it can do – from controlling the smart home, to checking your calendar, from setting reminders to running a Google search… it’s all there.
Then there’s keeping in touch – use voice control to make video calls, and there’s video playback, useful in the kitchen for YouTube recipe videos, and anywhere else for catching up with the latest Netflix smash.
There’s not enough room to tell you about everything it can do, just let’s say it’s a must-have if you’re embedded in Google’s ecosystem.
£219 from Google (store.google. com)
IROBOT ROOMBA 606 ROBOT VACUUM
ONCE upon a time you might have got a leathering for buying someone a vacuum cleaner for Christmas – times change, though. Because with a robot vacuum cleaner you aren’t really giving them that gift. You’re giving them time, spent not cleaning up.
iRobot is the top of the pops
when it comes to this world, and its base level Roomba 606 vacuum is an ideal entry into the robot utopia.
£249 from iRobot (shop.irobot. co.uk/)
NINTENDO SWITCH LITE
CHRISTMAS would not be Christmas without a gaming session, and while some are going crazy over the next gen consoles from Sony and Microsoft, the traditionalists might like to settle back with this much cheaper option from Nintendo.
It’s a trimmed down version of the Switch, which doesn’t, erm, switch between TV and hand-held mode like its fuller-featured sibling.
This is for handheld gaming only, but is the cheapest way to play MarioKart and gets my vote for that reason alone. Being able to while away a few hours in the calming and creative world of Animal Crossing: New Horizons is a bonus.
£199 from Nintendo (store. nintendo.co.uk)
9 OCULUS QUEST 2
VIRTUAL Reality has obviously been a tough nut to crack for the tech companies, with expensive and heavy headsets being required for the best experience. But slowly and surely the weight and the price is coming down, and the most recent stab at the game from Oculus is more or less there.
It’s light, it’s wireless, it requires no extra equipment beyond the hand controllers, and has a great selection of experiences and games to enjoy.
■ £299 from Oculus (oculus.com)
GOPRO HERO8 BLACK
WHEN our smartphones all have such great cameras, there are really only two reasons to invest in a dedicated unit – to get better quality images with a ‘real’ camera, or buy an action cam you can take anywhere, like a GoPro.
Its Hero8 isn’t its latest device – that honour goes to the exceptional (and expensive) Hero9. But the Hero8 still offers great value at the price, and has some cutting edge features like lens switching, Hypersooth 2.0 video stabilisation, and a variety of add-on modules to enhance the experience.
If you’re capturing video in a place you wouldn’t want to use your smartphone, it’s a great option.
■ £279.98 from GoPro (gopro.com)