It’s that time of year again. Despite continual advertising since mid-June, most of us leave our frantic gift buying until December 24.
If you’re still wondering what to buy the gadget-obsessed geek in your life, Amazon has published a useful top 10 of electronic gifts from the US, UK, Germany and France. These lists have been compiled from shoppers using Amazon’s wishlist system (although they’ve removed their Kindle ebook reader from the results so the lists are unbiased).
US Amazon.com
The US wishlist is dominated by high-end Canon cameras and accessories. It looks like an expensive season for US buyers…
- Canon EOS 7D 18MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera — $1,683
- Epson MovieMate 60 V11H319220 Home Theater — $580
- Apple iPod touch 32 GB — $275
- Apple iPod touch 8 GB — $182
- Canon EOS Rebel T1i 15.1 MP CMOS Digital SLR Camera — $720
- Canon Digital Rebel XSi 12.2 MP Digital SLR Camera — $570
- Canon EF-S 55-250mm f/4.0-5.6 IS Telephoto Zoom Lens — $217
- Flip UltraHD Camcorder — $150
- Canon Speedlite 580EX II Flash — $395
- Canon EF 100mm f/2.8L IS USM 1-to-1 Macro Lens — $1,050
UK Amazon.co.uk
Gift requests are a little more modest in the UK, with prices ranging from just £2. It looks as though you can’t go wrong with an Apple iPod…
- Apple iPod touch 8GB — £139
- Apple iPod touch 32GB — £209
- Western Digital Elements 1TB USB 2.0 External Hard Drive — £65
- SanDisk 8GB SDHC Secure Digital Card — £12
- Sony BDPS360B Profile 2.0 Blu-ray Player — £132
- Toshiba Regza 32AV615DB 32-inch Widescreen TV — £300
- Integral USB 2.0 Single Slot SD Card Reader — £2
- Apple iPod classic 160GB — £196
- Seagate Expansions 1TB External Hard Drive — £62
- LG 22LH2000 22-inch Widescreen LCD TV — £216
German Amazon.de
TVs and netbooks are high on the typical German geek list…
- Samsung S5230 Star Smartphone — €132
- Samsung N130@nynet-N270BN 10.1″ Netbook — €305
- Western Digital WDE1UBK10000E Elements External Hard Drive — €92
- LG Electronics 32LH2000 32″ LCD TV — €392
- Toshiba REGZA 42″ LCD TV — €609
- Samsung LE 40 B 650 40″ LCD TV — €779
- Samsung P2450H 24″ LCD TV — €209
- Canon PowerShot SX200 IS 12MP Digital Camera — €255
- SanDisk Secure Digital High Capacity (SDHC) Memory Card — €35
- Apple Magic Mouse — €99
French Amazon.fr
There’s a little more variety in France, but media players appear to be your best bet…
- Western Digital Elements Desktop WDE1UBK10000 Hard Drive — €86
- Apple iPod Nano 8GB Violet — €90
- Gold-plated 2M HDMI cable — €5
- Western Digital WDAVP00BE TV Media Player — €102
- Samsung NC10 10.2″ Netbook — €284
- Western Digital 320GB Portable Hard Disk — €84
- Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ7EF-K 10 MP Compact Digital Camera — €279
- Philips SA1VBE04K Media Player — €59
- Apple iPod Touch 32GB — €263
- Garmin Forerunner 305 GPS Watch — €154
Have you been especially good this year? What are you hoping to find in your stocking?
Craig is a freelance UK web consultant who built his first page for IE2.0 in 1995. Since that time he's been advocating standards, accessibility, and best-practice HTML5 techniques. He's created enterprise specifications, websites and online applications for companies and organisations including the UK Parliament, the European Parliament, the Department of Energy & Climate Change, Microsoft, and more. He's written more than 1,000 articles for SitePoint and you can find him @craigbuckler.