Gifts that dads and grads will love, 2017 edition
One of my favorite gadgets of the year so far is Ecoxgear’s Sol Jam ($149.99), a compact, waterproof and shockresistant Bluetooth speaker with a solar panel for its rechargeable battery. You can also use the Sol Jam’s battery to recharge your other devices, like iPhones and iPads.
It takes two to three hours to fully charge via USB. While charging via the solar panel takes longer, the Sol Jam can maintain its charge all day in sufficient sunlight. Finally, it sounds good for its size and price.
I’m a fanatic about keeping my laptop free of scratches and dents, so I’ve always enclosed them in protective cases. For years, my go-to case was the Speck Seethru ($49.95; currently on sale for $39.96), a thin, transparent polycarbonate case that snaps on easily, doesn’t add much bulk and is available in five colors.
This year I tried something different: the ICE case ($79.95) from Urban Armor Gear. It’s a little bulkier than the Speck Seethru due to its armor shell and impact-resistant bumpers, but it offers significantly better protection against impacts or drops and has become my new favorite.
One of the best ways to ensure great-looking pictures is to keep your camera still. The Kenu Stance ($24.95) is an ingenious tiny tripod that connects to your iPhone’s Lightning port using MicroMount, a patent–pending attachment made of a durable, resilient resin called Grilamid. The Grilamid doohickey then connects to a small ball-and-socket mechanism, which allows precise positioning of your iPhone in either portrait or landscape modes.
The rest of the device is heavy-duty zinc alloy, so it’s as solid as a rock.
Last, but not least, if your dad or grad plays guitar (like yours truly), check out Peavey’s ReValver 4 Producer Pack ($99.99), one of the most realistic guitar amp modeling apps (if not the most realistic) I’ve ever used. I love the way every module is totally tweakable, complete with schematics, right down to the individual components in the tube amp models.
Another cool feature is ReValver’s Audio Cloning Technology, which lets you sample your guitar and then apply different guitar profiles to make it sound like a different instrument entirely.