2010 Holiday Season Gift Buying Guide

The hottest gifts of the 2010 holiday season.

2010 Holiday Season Gift Buying Guide

As a devoted follower of the gritty underbelly of internet deal seeking, I am here to offer you tips and tricks, hints and insights for the 2010 holiday shopping season. With the down cheaper I'm sure you'll hear population in Cnbc and Gma talking about how the holiday shopping season will be worse than expected, and from the point of view of the stores, this will likely be true. There are plentifulness of unemployed folks out there and their capability to go out and buy new 0 iPads is surely going to be limited.

But I also ran over and animated statistic at a speaking event in early November. The rate of unemployment is between 4 and 5%, if you have a college degree. Now I perceive there are plentifulness of population out there who are hurting, but occasionally the grim and dire focus of the news can obscure some of the animated points in the world. While the retailers might suffer as a effect of this, a few lean years can be really good for a company, it can force them to incorporate their gains and refocus on their core products and demographics. This is really good for us as consumers. It means that retailers will be more willing to make deals and offers some serious enticements to get us into their store and keep us as customers.

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I for one welcome a return to some lean times. For a while there it was too easy for fellowships like Best Buy or Apple to get consumers to buy their products. I want them to have to work for my dollars, at least a bit. And we would all benefit from a tiny flexibility on the part of Apple. On the one hand, I respect that a enterprise has set a price for their products that accurately reflect the costs of production, but Apple also has behaviors that remind me of monopolistic practices. So it's hard to say if they're just an honest technology maker or if they're leveraging their must-have products off the back of the Apple fanboy set.

Anyway on to the hotness:

The iPad: This will be the first Christmas with iPad availability. I'm a bit ambivalent about the iPad, but I can see it being a great fit for a lot of people. I'm not convinced that tablets do anyone more than a netbook and with the steep excellent for the Apple logo, I remain unconvinced. Which is to say that I won't be hoping Santa brings me my very own iPad, but I can see why there are plentifulness of population who will want them. If you're not a laptop owner, but you use the hell out of your Smartphone, then maybe an iPad is a natural prolongation for you. My biggest hesitation with respect to the tablet is I'm not sure if it replaces anything, or just makes my bag heavier.

The 3GgZGVmZW5kZXI=#">iphone4: I must admit that I just bought a new 3GgZGVmZW5kZXI=#">iphone4, my first iPhone! I was really on the fence about jumping from the Vzw ship and signing onto team iPhone, but what tipped the balance for me was the Verizon iPhone. The extent to which there is a Verizon iPhone is that at some point in 2011, Verizon might get an iPhone, maybe. Moreover it will not be an iPhone5, it will essentially be the Cdma iPhone1. Apple is in the process of fundamentally redesigning the iPhone to be compatible with Verizon's older Cdma suitable network. Remember all the issues that Apple and Att have had; do you think it will be distinct with Verizon? I always regret being an early adopter. You're inevitably good off waiting for V2.0, than rushing into what amounts to an extended Beta testing phase. Now I won't be alone in reasoning this way and like the iPad, this is the first Xmas for the iPhone4. Also it looks sooo good. They really stepped it up with the aesthetics for the iPhone4 and the Retina Screen is so very crisp. (Wipes drool from chin) animated on.

Digital Book Readers: I'm a big book reader, I think I've read more than 100 books in 2010, but I'm an analog book guy. I love turning pages, finding my enlarge through a book as I read it. So I am not an e-reader candidate. But they're getting much good and much more popular. For the same presuppose that I like getting a 2nd or 3rd generation anything, I think now is the time to think about buying the Amazon Kindle or Sony's offering.

The Kindle by Amazon: This is turning into a very nice reading product. It's lightweight (only 8.5 ounces in the latest version), it has impressive battery life (up to 1 month if you're just reading books with the wi-fi off) and the screen interface is easy on the eyes. It's also hitting a very comfortable price point with 2 versions ready under 0. The basic wi-fi only model at 9.00 and the 3G enabled gismo for 9.00. The Kindle Dx has the big screen at 9.7" and the big price tag at 9.00.

One of my biggest hesitations with a digital book reader is that it is a one trick pony. I like my tech to be a swiss army knife. I'm hesitant to purchase something that can only do one thing, unless it can do it really well. I think that the Kindle might do books well adequate to elucidate the tiny uses for the device. The Kindle can also deal good with Pdfs, so you could use it for work or school.

A Note: I believe the best gifts are evergreen. They hold up to the test of time and they remain useful for more than just the next 6 months. So this is one of my main criteria for selecting items for this list. However, not all things on this list is evergreen and not all the gifts this holiday season should have to last for years to come. There should be one or two that are both good and brief.

Call of Duty Black Ops: ready for the Ps3, Xbox360, Wii, and Windows, this is going to be one of the hot Games for this season. The Gameplay looks outstanding and is reviewing really well. Also I am a bit of a sucker for really clever advertising and the "There's a Soldier in All of Us" ads are truly excellent. It really positions a Game that might be viewed as a "boys Game" to a wider audience and helps to enlarge the demographic appeal.

Blu-ray player with movie streaming: Again, I like to wait for a few iterations of new tech before I adopt it and I think Blu-ray is ultimately there. I'm not about to go out and replace all my Dvds with Blu-ray, but I am willing to pay the extra few dollars when I buy movies from now on. I recently got Netflix streaming hooked up through my television and it is excellent. Having Netflix is much smoother than hooking up a computer through the Tv. Though the option leaves a lot to be desired, it's great to be able to watch high capability movies on demand. Vudu is an additional one streaming assistance that looks to have a good option but at a steeper price. If you're willing to upgrade to Blu-ray you might as well kick in the extra or so for a streaming service.

Netbooks: I'd love to advise that population go and buy the new Macbook Air, but I can't do it. I'm sure it's a great computer that works well and is super light, and it's in the second generation, which meets my "wait for it" rule. But at 2-3 times the price of a comparable netbook, it's too steep of a excellent for me.

I've tried to keep my list mostly gender neutral, although I perceive it has a tiny bias towards the masculine. Any way I will make a few recommendations for the women in your lives: Shoes and Handbags. That about exhausts that good guidance I have on what to buy. But I have prominent cautions about what not to buy. Do Not buy the appliance for Christmas. Even if you and your valuable other have been talking about getting a chest freezer for a while now. Don't buy it for Christmas. Nothing says, "Honey, I think you should spend more time cooking for me" quite like an appliance. Trust me on this; make the front-loading washer/dryer a Thanksgiving gift if you want, keep the trips to home depot out of the Christmas holiday.

>2010 Holiday Season Gift Buying Guide