Top Electronics for the Holiday Season

Brandon Aubrey, Staff Writer
December 2, 2011
Filed under World

With Black Friday in recent memory, consumerism heads full force into the holiday season. Living in an increasingly technological world, it’s no surprise that electronics are on the top of many shopper’s minds when it comes to holiday gift ideas. Naturally, some shoppers might feel overwhelmed by the numerous options. Fortunately, there are electronics out there that stand head and shoulders above the competition, making excellent purchases for the holidays.

Tablets – mobile computers with a touch screen- have been a popular item lately. Their mobility and compactness have found a successful relationship with their relatively strong processing power. Apple’s iPad 2, starting at $499 and available since March 11th of this year, has dominated the tablet market, with it’s easy interface and versatility. For those looking to spend less, Amazon.com’s Kindle Fire, starting 300 dollars lower then the iPad 2 at $199, made waves at Black Friday this year. Although not quite as powerful as the iPad 2, the Kindle Fire’s price tag is significantly lower than it’s Apple branded competitor, and should be considered by all potential tablet buyers.

Smart phones - high end cell phones with internet capabilities – are useful in many ways. Apart from the obvious phone utility, they also often have the ability to use the Global Positioning System (GPS), surf the web, play games and take HD quality videos. Apple’s iPhone 4S, starting at $199, features Siri, a voice operated intelligence that the user can assign tasks to. The new phone has a 1080p HD camera, a dual core chip and a cloud based storage system. At the same time, Google’s Android looks to give Apple a run for their money. Also sporting a cloud based storage system, the Android smartphone includes a user friendly camera and photo sharing system, Google Maps, voice typing and a face recognizing security system.

Although hardware is always nice, software is also worthy of notice. The video game industry is booming this holiday season, with many anticipated releases finding success over the last few weeks. Among these include Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, available for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and PC, and the Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword, available for the Nintendo Wii. Skyrim offers a gigantic open world, with endless dragons to fight and dungeons to explore. Skyward Sword, on the other hand, offers unique swordplay mechanics, and interesting puzzles to solve. Skyrim starts at $60, while Skyward Sword starts at $50.

When all’s said and done, it’s safe to say that there are many choices to be made when it comes to buying electronics. Whether it’s tablets, cellphones, video games or anything else, there are the good products and the bad ones. In order to make good decisions regarding electronics, a buyer needs to know which products stand out amongst the rest, and are worth buying. Luckily, some products stand out as exceptional, and should be highly considered by many holiday shoppers.