Tim and Scott

Tim

Lumsing 6,000 mAh Portable Power Pack

Smartphones and tablets are as popular as ever, but you can only fit so much battery into these thin mobile devices. Thankfully, portable power packs like the Lumsing PBJ-6200 exist to provide extra power while on the go for all of your USB powered devices. The Lumsing pictured uses a 6,000 mAh battery to provide two USB charging ports (one 1.2 amp and one 2.1 amp) in a tiny metalic package weighing less than half a pound (6.49oz). You can expect to get two full charges for a high end smartphone like the Samsung Galaxy S4 or three to four with a lower-end phone.

At just under $40 on Amazon, it makes the perfect gift for those smartphone weilding teens. And while you're at it, you might as well pick one up for your own stocking!

OCZ Vertex 460 Solid State Drive

A SSD is a solid gift idea that will make your loved ones PC experience noticeably snappier and can be installed in less than an hour (including cloning the old drive over). The OCZ Vertex 460 is a great budget option that is still extremely fast for a SATA drive! It is available in 120GB, 240GB, and 480GB capacities, uses Toshiba 19nm flash, a Barefoot 3 M10 controller, and can hit 530MB/s reads, 420MB/s writes, and 80,000/90,000 read/write IOPS (and that's on the lowest capacity drive). Not bad for a drive that starts at around $100 for the 120GB model (and is regularly on sale for less)!

You can find our full review of the OCZ Vertex 460 here (Allyn reviewed the 240GB model while I bought the 120GB version pictured above).

EVGA GTX 750Ti Superclocked Graphics Card

NVIDIA's GTX 750 Ti was the company's first graphics card based on the Maxwell architecture, and EVGA's Superclocked implementation makes for a solid budget gaming option. Whether this is for a new build or upgrading an OEM PC to nudge your loved ones over to PC gaming, the GTX 750 Ti SC comes in under $150 and sips power. The SC version comes factory overclocked with the GPU (640 CUDA cores) clocked at 1176 MHz base and 1255 MHz boost and the 2GB of GDDR5 memory clocked at 5400 MHz. A custom cooler keeps the short dual slot card running cool and quiet as well.

For more details on Maxwell and the GTX 750 Ti, you can check out our full review. The EVGA GTX 750 Ti Superclocked model is available online for around $145 ($130 after mail-in-rebates).

Scott

Blue Yeti Microphone

Okay, so this one is a bit different from our usual coverage. When my headset died, I needed a replacement, high-quality microphone to record podcasts and other voice recordings. Moreover, I wanted one that would sound good without too much fiddling. I eventually settled on the Blue Yeti and its official pop filter, and I have been happy with that decision (except for the senseless, hacky method of installing their own, official pop filter – seriously, YouTube it).

If intended as a gift, this microphone should be purchased for someone who intends to use it at extremely close range. I mean, it will pick up voices from a distance, but they will sound very “roomy” (which is not good). If the person is intending to “work” the mic, by keeping their lips no more than a couple of inches away, the Yeti sounds great, especially if you are in a quiet environment. It is sensitive. It may pick up noises from other rooms.

Even better, the device also registers as a great USB sound card. The headphone jack will also mix the microphone audio (if configured to do so in your operating system's preferences) without noticeable latency. I am very sensitive to hearing myself when I talk, forcing me to stutter and stammer instantly, but this return audio is comfortable, and it is helpful if I am trying to produce a specific voice for one reason or another.

I do have two minor technical issues with the device, however. The first is that the mute button is unreliable. You need to check the light (in the middle of the button) to ensure that it actually muted. The second is that it drops all audio for about a quarter-second if your microphone input clips. In other words, if you are listening to music (or something) with the microphone unmuted, the audio will hitch and drop if you clap your hands or snap your fingers loud enough. This seems like a fairly severe and unnecessary response to loud microphone noise, but it rarely comes up, though.

Lastly, this is a gigantic microphone. It is about three-quarters the height of my 24-inch monitor. You will want to only place it in a place that it will not obstruct your vision of anything important (your monitor, etc.).

Crucial MX100 SSD (512GB)

Especially if you live in Canada, the Crucial MX100 is going to be about your lowest cost-per-gigabyte for a good, recently-released SSD. It is not going to be as fast as other drives, like the Samsung 850 Pro, but it will be sufficient if your goal is to have a comfortable, responsive PC. Photoshop CS5.1 launches (and is usable) in just under five seconds and its Windows 10 boot times are about as low as drive performance can contribute to. This would be a good choice as a main drive replacement for machines built upon a standard, spindle-based hard drive (if your specific device allows the user to access it).

Of course, this might not be the best drive for (popular) web/database server, statistics, and scientific workloads. Also, the lack of a 1TB version is unfortunate for enthusiasts on a budget. Doubling the cost of the 512GB version would put the non-existent 1TB SKU at about $50 (currently) below the 1TB Crucial M550. This would be a very appealing product. It may, also, cannibalize a good portion of the M550's sales. I guess I can understand that.

Subscription to Netflix (or Amazon Prime Video, etc.)

Sometimes we forget that subscription services can be gifts, too. Instead of giving one (or a handful of) movies on disk, you could gift a year to a whole catalog. Obviously, this would not be a suitable replacement if the recipient had a specific movie in mind, because it may or may not be on the service — and even if it is, it may disappear at any time. Still, it is a relatively cheap method of providing bulk entertainment.

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