Experian owned company PriceGrabber.com has released their predictions for the top gadgets and consumer electronic gifts for this holiday shopping season.
Top 2010 Electronic Holiday Gift Guide:
- Motorola® DROID™ smartphone: The DROID™ 2 by Motorola® includes an Android™ 2.2 operating system and features a 3.7-inch full touch screen and improved slide-out QWERTY keyboard. Its 1GHz processor helps consumers quickly navigate across the Web and email, as well as their favorite apps.
As developers release more apps for the DROID platform, expect it to make a real run at the iPHONE’s smart phone dominance. This could even be true in the custom home electronic installation market, where Apple’s little device currently has an almost unbreakable stronghold. I am a beta tester for the DROID Crestron home control app. Look for an initial impression and a more thorough look soon.
- Apple® iPad™ tablet: This tablet computer was introduced in April 2010. Its popularity can be attributed to its multi-touch display and cross-functionality.
A strong contender for “Coolest Gadget Ever”. Now that custom installation companies such as Crestron, Control4 and Elan have co-opted this as the defacto replacement for their proprietary touchscreen remote controls, you’ll be seeing them scattered throughout homes everywhere, being the control interface for lighting control, security systems, and distributed audio / video. Crestron has even announced a sleeve for the iPAD that adds hard buttons for frequently used functions, such as volume and channel up/down.
- Apple® iPhone™ 4: Apple®’s fourth-generation multimedia-enabled smartphone is among the most popular cellular devices on the market due to its touch-screen capabilities, video calling and access to more than 200,000 mobile apps.
- Canon EOS Rebel DSLR camera: The Canon EOS Rebel T2i brings professional EOS features into an easy-to-use, lightweight digital SLR. Its features include an 18.0 Megapixel CMOS image sensor, increased light sensitivity for low light photography and advanced HD movie mode for full HD movies.
These are fantastic. You could shoot a feature film on one of these things.
- Xbox 360® Video console: With a sleek new design, 4GB flash memory and built-in Wi-Fi, the new Xbox 360® gives consumers the ultimate gaming and entertainment experience.
- SAMSUNG™ 55-inch 3-D LED television: Along with a stunning 3-D picture, consumers can use Web-connected Samsung apps to stream movies, play games and flip through photos. Additionally, its 240Hz Clear Motion Rate virtually eliminates all motion blur so the picture is crisp.
It’s final! People want a TV that is so thin that it virtually dissapears when viewed from the side. The fact that you can access about 18,000 movies and TV episodes through Vudu and Netflix whenever you want, along with weather and the latest info from Wall Street, surely doesn’t hurt either. Hurray for Internet connectivity direct to the display!
- Apple TV®: Apple TV® streams movies, television shows, music, podcasts and other media to a central HDTV. Consumers can enjoy content from the iTunes Store, the Internet, and other computers without the need to sync back and forth.
Is Apple going their own way once again? While this is another of those “Cool as Hell” devices that I love to play with,
Aww, it's so cute! Whatever...but how could you not want to pick up one of these things? Netflix streaming, iTUNES streaming (for movies & TV shows too), control from your iPAD or iPHONE, streaming to or from either one of them, and the new form factor. It is positively nano. Will it be small enough, though?
would Apple be better served to integrate Apple TV as an app with Interent-ready TV sets, and do away with AppleTV hardware altogether?
Their new AppleTV has a super small footprint, but seeing as how the latest thin, flat panel TV mounts place the TV only about 3/4″ from the wall, there still may not be enough space for Apple’s little wonder. Amazing device, though, and the iPAD/iPHONE integration for control and content streaming is not to be missed. Did I mention it’s only $99?
See What People Are Saying About the New Apple TV
Other predicted hot gadgets you’ll have to endure requests for this holiday shopping season include:
3-D games, of course. They also predicted that another hot category would be 3-D games for the Nintendo Wii and Sony’s PS3.
Anything Else?
They didn’t mention it, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see Amazon’s Kindle, especially the WiFi version (due to it’s bargain basement price point) under more than a few trees this year. It’s one of Amazon’s all time best sellers, and the e-book reader concept is really taking hold. Did I mention you can store and read e-books on your iPAD as well? What did you expect?
Check out the Kindle Wifi Here
