While Santa Claus is usually spot on in the underpants and aftershave department, he's less noted for keeping up to date with the latest gadgets. So while I know it is early, and, yes, the weather feels more like September than November, I am still going to take the opportunity to highlight 10 of the latest relatively cheap gizmos that the white-bearded fellow would do well to take note of.
1. Fujifilm Q1 (£100) - Fuji's latest budget snapper is a digital version of its popular Q1 film-based camera. It is amazing value, too, for unlike many sub-£100 cameras it takes two mega-pixel images and has a reasonable quality LCD screen. Available at the end of the month.
www.fujifilm.co.uk
2. Dual Sports (£200) - Ideal for those whose New Year's resolutions involve shedding a few pounds, the Dual Sports is the first ever MP3 player to also feature a built-in heart rate monitor. It's ideal for seeing just how much impact The Darkness has on your old ticker. It packs 250MB of storage - enough for around four hours worth of MP3 tunes.
www.mp3-plus.net
3. Disgo Pro (£300) - The latest USB keychain storage system to hit the stores. You use it to carry round all your files and transfer them between any PC running Windows XP. The model's best features are that it boasts 1 gigabyte of storage, more than almost all its rivals, and that you can add modules such as an MP3 player and voice recorder.
www.mydisgo.com
4. Humax 8000 (£200) - An inexpensive Freeview (digital terrestrial) receiver with a secret weapon - it also includes an integrated hard disk video recorder with enough storage for around 20 hours of viewing. It might not be quite as sophisticated as the Sky Plus box, but at least there's no monthly TV subscription to pay.
www.humaxdigital.com
5. Wireless Speakers (£100) - Delivering the cable-free home on the cheap, these wireless speakers allow you to pipe music from your CD player/PC anywhere in your home provided you lug the speakers round with you. Music is transmitted via FM through a base station connected to your system. It apparently has a range of around 100 metres.
www.iwantoneofthose.com
6. Xitel Inport (£53) - Clever little device that allows you to save music from record decks and cassette recorders as digital quality WAV files on your PC. Comes with really neat software that automatically sets levels, divides tracks and so on.
www.nifty-gadgets.net
7. Bush DABCR2003 (£80) -Radio Five Live fans fed up with hearing presenters who sound as though they are in a studio with eggs frying in the background will love this clock radio. It takes the snap, crackle and pop out of breakfast broadcasts by receiving DAB digital radio transmissions. At just £80 it is also one of the cheapest DAB radios on sale.
www.qed-uk.com
8. Logitech QuickCam Sphere (£100) - One of the coolest webcams on sale, the Sphere's trump card is that it offers a basic form of head tracking. This ensures that you stay in focus on video calls no matter how much you move around on your chair.
www.logitech.com
9. Vestax Handy Trax (£85) - A record collector's dream, the Handy Trax is a battery-powered portable record player complete with integrated amp and speakers. This is the perfect gift for a person whose idea of nirvana is rummaging through vinyl at boot and record fairs.
www.vestax.co.uk
10. Shocking Roulette (£14.95) - A take on the classic casino game, except that instead of winning a pile of chips the person whose trap the ball falls into receives an electrical shock. Of course, 3xAAA batteries don't deliver too much of a jolt, but that doesn't prevent the wait for the ball to drop being one of the most agonising moments of your life.
www.firebox.com
