Tech your halls this holiday
Staycations have never been more fun.
Don’t be jealous if your snooty friends won’t stop talking about their upcoming holiday vacation. ❚ Let them deal with crowded airports, sunburns and watered-down booze at all-inclusive resorts. ❚ Instead, having a “staycation” has never been more fun – especially if you consider all the awesome home tech you can pick up for you and the family. ❚ From big-screen televisions and smart speakers that play millions of songs (simply by asking for it) to deals on video game consoles and curling up with a great e-book on a tablet, there’s never been a better time to be home for the holidays. ❚ The following are a few noteworthy examples. Kitchen companion
Fusing a great-sounding speaker with a smart personal assistant, Google Home Max ($399) is one of the best gadgets for music lovers. After joining to your WiFi network, pair your favorite streaming music service (such as Spotify or Google Music), and then use your voice to ask for a specific song, album, artist, playlist or genre. Under the hood, you’ll find dual 4.5-inch woofers for deep, balanced bass and custom tweeters for crystal-clear highs. Because Google Assistant is built in, ask a question or give a command, or make free phone calls to anyone in the U.S. or Canada (no landline needed).
On the Surface
Microsoft’s ultraportable Surface Laptop 2 (from
$799) lets you play “Fortnite” in a family room, watch a video in the kitchen or browse the web in a home office. This sleek and lightweight device has a vibrant
13.5-inch PixelSense touch screen and battery life of up to 14.5 hours — and that’s for video playback, no less. Available in multiple colors, this powerful yet versatile
3-pound PC houses an 8th Generation Intel Core processor to deliver the oomph you need for gaming, editing or multitasking.
Big-screen beauty
Is it a TV or fancy artwork? The answer is both if you’re talking about the aptly named The Frame by Samsung (from $1,199 for 43 inches). It’s a stunning 4K Ultra HD Smart TV (with HDR), but when you’re not watching content, it displays several hundred pieces of artwork (or you can import your own images) rather than having a black rectangle on your wall when not in use. To really make it look like a picture frame, optional bezels add attractive borders (in different colors) that magnetically affix to all four sides of the TV.
For cord cutters
Attention cable cutters: The new TiVo Bolt OTA for Antenna ($249, plus monthly fee) gives you a premium
Get smart
Turn a regular TV into a smart TV. This is the premise behind the inexpensive Roku Premiere ($39). Simply plug this small doohickey into a television’s HDMI port, join your Wi-Fi and then use the included remote (or optional Roku app on a smartphone or tablet) to stream more than 500,000 movies and TV episodes across thousands of free and paid channels. Roku Premiere supports both HDTVs and 4K Ultra HDTVs, including those with High Dynamic Range (HDR) for an even clearer picture. TV experience – including live viewing, recording and commercial skip capability – without needing a cable or satellite service.
Instead, use an HD antenna (sold separately) to pick up over-the-air broadcasts. And TiVo Bolt lets you watch, record and manage programming, along with streaming 4K movies and shows from Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and others. This box supports four TV tuners, and the DVR stores up to 150 hours of programming.
Get in touch with your chill
The new (6th Gen) 9.7-inch Apple iPad (from $329) features a powerful A10 Fusion chip for playing all the latest games, editing 4K video or experiencing the latest augmented reality apps – not to mention you can multitask, such as making a FaceTime video call with a friend while browsing the web for recipe ideas. Now supporting Apple Pencil ($99), you can have greater precision when taking notes at work or school, drawing or sketching or unwinding with an adult coloring book app. Available in white, black or space gray, the 7.5mm-thin iPad also features dual cameras, a loud speaker, and with some models that support LTE along with Wi-Fi. Battery life tops 10 hours between charges.
Settling in with a page turner
Finally, if all you want is an exceptional e-reader, Amazon’s top-of-the-line Kindle Oasis ($249 for 8GB of storage) is a 7-inch device with crisp text that looks like ink on paper thanks to its 300 pixels-per-inch resolution. Available in Graphite or Champagne Gold, it features dedicated page turn buttons and an adaptive front light so you can read in bed without disturbing your partner (or close your eyes and let Kindle Oasis read you audiobooks from Audible). Plus, it’s waterproof, so you can slip into a bath and not worry about it getting wet.
Battery life is measured in weeks, not hours. For $299, a 32GB version can hold even more e-books, magazines, comics, newspapers and audiobooks.