Our tech experts pick their top Christmas gifts from Apple, Sonos, Dyson and others
The Australian’s tech team has picked 18 gift ideas that are on sale now for this Christmas. Here’s what’s hot and how you can snap up a bargain.
The world’s biggest consumer electronics companies have a raft of tricks up their sleeves to entice Australians to spend almost $70bn this Christmas, and the shopping spree begins this weekend with Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
Apple has frozen or cut prices across its iPhones, Apple Watch and its MacBook Pro line-up, while British electronics giant Dyson says it is saving customers their most valuable resource – time – after it unveiled its new WashG1 mop, which vacuums and mops simultaneously.
Others have attempted to win more customers by entering new categories, with Sonos finally making its foray into the headphone market.
The Australian Retailers Association expects this year’s Christmas shopping spree will inject $69.7bn overall into the economy – a 2.2 per cent gain on last year – defying a cost of living crunch.
We took a look at the top products on offer and ran them through their paces.
Sonos Ace
$699 ($549 with a Black Friday discount)
Sonos’ first entry into the over-ear phone market made a sonic boom. Retailing at $699 ($549 with a Black Friday discount) they are priced at the premium end of the market, competing against Apple, Bose and also Dyson, which released its OnTrac headphones this year.
So how does the Ace stack up?
They are almost 73g lighter than Apple’s AirPod Max and Sonos Ace sound great, featuring spatial audio and ‘vegan leather’ ear cushions, which are easy to clean and don’t leave sweat rings. The only let down was Sonos’ bug-prone app, which prompted a mea culpa from its CEO.
Sonos has since released a bevy of updates to fix the app after the “misstep” wiped off about a third of its market value.
Dyson WashG1
$799
Dyson is best known for reinventing the vacuum with its cyclonic technology, which it then took to supersonic hair dryers and headphones. Now it’s gone full circle to disrupt the humble mop, with the release of the WashG1.
This is a mop that costs $799 – putting it alongside its high-end vacuums. It aims to save a user time by vacuuming and mopping simultaneously.
A must for cleaning up any festive spills, it’s easy to use and maintain – featuring a display that shows you how to fix problems when they emerge – and has good battery life.
The dust tray is a little small though, and it’s hard to clean under tight spaces like beds.
Apple HomePod Mini
$149
Apple loves updating the colours of its products – rather than the tech itself sometimes – and this year its HomePod Mini smart speaker was made available in midnight. Priced at $149, the 8.5cm high speaker packs a punch, holding its own against more expensive rivals. It features Apple’s S5 chip, which works with advanced software to analyse the unique characteristics of the music and apply complex tuning models to optimise loudness, while its acoustic waveguide directs the flow of sound down and out toward the bottom of the speaker for an immersive 360-degree audio experience.
It can also be used as an intercom around the house, used as a stereo pair with another HomePod Mini, and connects seamlessly with its bigger sibling, HomePod, and Apple TV to provide a soundscape you can lose yourself in. We’re only disappointed that you can’t connect it to a turntable but then perhaps we’re a bit old-fashioned.
Apple AirTags
Single $49; $149 for 4 ($130.50 on sale)
Speaking of Apple – AirTags might seem like a boring gift but there’s a very good reason to buy some, especially for your jetsetting friends or family.
Qantas has become one of 15 airlines globally to partner with Apple and is now able to receive tracking information from AirTags stored in a person’s luggage.
Does that mean when your bags go missing you’ll get them back a lot sooner?
Only time will tell. But these are also handy just to have on a keychain if you’re the type to put something down and forget where.
Withings ScanWatch Nova
$799
Withings, a French company with a pedigree in health-monitoring devices, is offering one of the most stylish smartwatches available on the market. It is part of the invisible tech trend. If you like looking at an analogue display rather than pixels, this hybrid watch is for you.
Like the Samsung and Apple Ultra watches, Withings ScanWatch Nova – which retails for $799 – is encased with sapphire glass. It also has a ceramic bezel, and luminous dial, adding to its classic dive watch appeal – think Rolex Submariner or Omega Seamaster, but at a fraction of the cost. A second dial allows users to view their step count target at a quick glance.
The Nova can track walking, running and swimming workouts automatically, but for GPS tracking, you need to have your phone, which is its main drawback. Unlike Samsung and Apple, you can’t listen to music on the device – you need your phone for that.
KitchenAid Semi Automatic Espresso Machine
$999 ($799 on sale)
KitchenAid released a new range of up-market espresso machines in Australia – and they are quiet, featuring Q Mark certification.
Brewing coffee is straightforward and designed to remove the intimidation some people can feel when trying to reproduce barista-grade coffee but KitchenAid aims to make this as seamless as possible. You can adjust the grind and how much coffee fills the filter basket. Anti-static tech stops flicking coffee all over the place. A nice touch is a small mark inside the basket to assist with tamping.
But you can’t brew coffee and steam milk simultaneously, with it running on a single boiler.
Amazon Kindle
$199-$649
Amazon has refreshed its Kindle line-up in time for Christmas. The tech titan says Australians are expected to read more than three billion pages on their Kindles this summer, and its new models are designed to make this easier.
Amazon says its “all-new” Kindle Paperwhite is the “fastest and thinnest Kindle ever, with 25 per cent faster page turns and up to three months of battery life”.
It starts at $299. If that’s too steep, its entry level model is $100 cheaper and comes in a new ‘matcha’ colour. There is also a $649 Kindle Scribe which comes with a digital notebook function. Kindles are great if you want to go Marie Kondo and clear out your bookshelves. As for sitting by an Australian pool? Amazon says the Paperwhite has been tested to “withstand accidental immersion in water under certain conditions” – if you’re game enough to try it.
Sennheiser Momentum Sport
$529.95 ($309 on sale)
Wireless audio can be a pain, particularly when used for sports. It’s easy to forget to charge them, lose one half of them, or have that phantom feeling of them feeling like they are about to fall out of your ear. And this is before we get to fidelity.
Sennheiser has solved many of these problems with the Momentum Sport, which retail for $529.95 ($309 on sale).
Like most high-end earbuds, they come in a charging case, which means if you remember to charge it every now and then, the earbuds are always ready to go. It also helps prevent them from being lost.
As for the phantom feeling, Sennheiser offers a range of earbud tip covers and fins to ensure you the perfect fit. It will even double-check your fitting via its Smart Control app.
It can also check your body temperature and measure your heart rate during a workout and its anti-wind noise cancelling function is among the best we’ve tried. The only problem was activating these functions on the fly can be tricky.
MacBook Pro
Starts from $2499
Apple has finally unveiled a laptop designed for the artificial intelligence era – that’s cheaper than its previous model and features what it says is the longest battery life ever on a MacBook – up to 24 hours. Apple also continued its price cuts, slashing $300 off the 16-inch M4 MacBook Pro, which now starts at $3999 versus $4299 for last year’s model. For the smaller 14-inch M4 MacBook Pro, it has wiped $200 off last year’s price, with it now starting at $2499.
The new models come in a nano-texture display option, which is designed to “dramatically” reduce glare and “distractions from reflections” in bright lighting. The only drawback is Apple’s MacBook design is now a few years old and has sparked a string of copycats.
Cygnett 20,000 mAh Outdoor Solar Power Bank
$99
Australian tech company Cygnett have become a powerhouse in the charging and portable power market.
One of the newer products is for those who like to get outdoors. In a sunny country like this, why not make the most of it?
The sun does so much to our phones, overheating them and requiring significant battery power to cool them so the least one can do is use that same energy to recharge a device.
Solar-powered products took a pretty big leap this year, with the panels available on everything from security cameras to hats.
This device has a 20,000mAh capacity, enough to charge most modern smartphones at least four times. It’s dustproof, waterproof and has an in-built light and SOS light, to get you out of a trouble when you really need.
Google TV Streamer 4K
$159 ($109 on sale)
This is a gift for those with an old TV who don’t need an upgrade but really could do with a few more channels and choice. You don’t need a fancy new $2000 TV to get the latest and greatest streaming options; all you need is this $159 device ($109 on sale), a HDMI cable and a Wi-Fi connection and off you go.
If we’re honest, this isn’t so different from its previous chromecast models but it does have a couple of distinct features that make it handy. One of them is a remote finder – yes, that’s right.
If you can’t find your remote control you can simply ask Google to find it and it will. But if you’re a little more privacy conscious, simply walk up to the device and tap the little button at the back which will make your remote sing. For those with their TV close to their modem, there’s an ethernet port you can wire directly into and never face Wi-Fi issues again. There’s also a new processor, double the RAM and about four times the memory of previous models.
Samsung Galaxy Ring
$699
Samsung is known best for its TVs and soundbars and its home appliance range also set a pretty high bar. Its smartphones and wearables market isn’t as popular here but globally it dominates. The Korean tech giant’s latest device is for the Samsung fan who likes to geek out on future tech.
This ring can do a lot of things like track your heart rate, measure your steps, auto-detect when you’re out for a run or ride and each morning – providing you’ve worn it to bed – give you a little score the company says reflects “your body’s battery level”.
But one of the coolest features is a gesture capability that allows users to dismiss their smartphone’s alarm by tapping their ring-wearing finger and thumb twice. Neat!
The Frame
$1499-$4999
Can’t decide whether to mount a TV or a couple more pieces of art on the wall? Porque no los dos? Call it an example of life imitating art, if you will, but in any case it’s a very cool way to jazz up an entertainment space or bedroom wall without compromising your down time viewing. Other things to love?
The Frame arrives at between $1499 for its 43-inch model and that price rises to $4999 for those who go all out on the 85-inch counterpart ($964-$3467 on sale).
Samsung is in the midst of rolling out health tracking features into its smart TVs, which means you could soon throw an exercise bike in front of the telly and get your heart rate up while watching TV.
Music Frame
$699
Look, it’s a little bit cheeky to have this one and the Frame TV in the same list but the two do go very well together and if there’s one thing we learned this year, it’s that man, oh man, smart speakers are in no way a replacement for a proper audio system.
Samsung’s Music Frame $699 was an interesting entry into the market this year, where it and many others are attempting to reinvent soundbars in different shapes and sizes.
This is a clear example of that, doubling as a soundbar for the Frame and other TVs or, more simply, a really high-end bluetooth speaker that you can mount on the wall and change the centre image.
LG CineBeam Q
$2499 ($1299 on sale)
Another appliance and TV giant, LG needs no introduction. But it’s foray into the projector market does deserve some recognition. This would be one of the coolest projector we’ve used to date.
So cool in fact that we temporarily considered the ramifications of pretending it got lost in transit when asked to return it to LG.
This retro-styled 4K projector $2499 ($1299 on sale) will have you beaming a 100-inch screen on your wall like it’s nothing.
This thing is so compact it’s actually shorter than the iPhone 15 Pro Max, both in terms of its height and length but not width, measuring 135mm x 135mm x 80mm. It comes with access to LG’s webstore so all your apps are available.
LG CordZero® Dual Auto Empty Handstick + Robot Vac Combi
$2499 ($1999 on sale)
Another relatively new market for LG that is really rather impressive. Buying someone a vacuum for Christmas has never been a great idea. Unless, of course, they’re some kind of hardcore Dyson fan.
But this device isn’t just a vacuum, it’s a robot. And one that’s going to make life a hell of a lot easier, especially for those who might be less able-bodied or mobile.
If you ever used a robot vacuum, you’d know that while innovative, they miss spots, and they’re no match for humans.
That’s why it’s better to combine the two, a vacuum for picking up the day-to-day crumbs and a hand-held device with a mopping attachment for when you want to do a real deep clean.
Lytworx Filament Festoon Solar And USB LED Lights
$69.99
Solar lights are finally having their moment. It’s not thanks to some fancy new tech or a new way of doing things – it comes down to the battery and the solar panels.
Take this set for example, which has a 2000mAh battery.
If you’d like a comparison, that’s about half the size of a modern smartphone, or slightly above an iPhone 7.
That’s a pretty big jump from where solar lights have been in the past. Oh, and the best part? Say that 2000mAh doesn’t last or it’s a cloudy day, you can run this from a powerbank via a USB cable.
Panasonic MULTISHAPE
$299 ($179 on sale)
Men love two-in-one shampoo and conditioner. Is there really any doubt they won’t love a five-in-one toothbrush and trimmer.
Whether it’s keeping the grills clean, trimming the beard or nose, shaving your face or tidying up your chest, this can do it, with a max run-time of about 70 minutes.
What’s not to love?
At $299 ($179 on sale) it’s a pretty solid gift for the dads, husbands and anyone else out there that really just enjoys two-in-one type deals.
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