NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — It’s that time of year when we’re looking for the perfect gift for family and friends and if you've got people on your list who love tech and gadgets, you may be stumped with what to give them.
Electronics are always popular gifts for the holidays, so we asked some Consumer Reports tech editors which ones they personally recommend this holiday season.
First up! For the music or podcast lover: a new speaker.
“I would definitely suggest the Sonos One smart speaker. There are a lot of things to like about it. One, it sounds great and that’s really the most important thing with any speaker,” said Allen St. John with Consumer Reports.
Melanie Pinola writes about smartphones for Consumer Reports and says Motorola’s Moto G Stylus smartphone is a great gift at a great price.
“It’s hard to believe you get all these features for the price that you’re paying,” Pinola said.
Those features include the rarely-seen SD card for expandable storage and the nearly-extinct headphone jack!
Nicholas De Leon spends hours researching and writing about laptops. He says the Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 is the perfect gift for someone on the go.
It’s also a Consumer Reports Best Buy which means it’s a great value, too. It only weighs two and a half pounds and Consumer Reports testing shows it has 12 hours of battery life.
Last but not least, Consumer Reports TV and soundbar expert, Jim Willcox.
“A great gift for anyone this holiday season—including me—would be a Sonos Ray soundbar speaker," Willcox said. "It’s the least expensive Sonos soundbar that you can buy. And it has impressive sound quality for its size—which makes it good not only just for watching movies and playing video games, but also listening to music.”
And you can pair it with other Sonos speakers for surround sound in your living room or for a whole home audio system.
“You can even connect it to the Sonos smart speaker that Allen recommended,” Willcox added.
Be sure to keep the receipt in case there's a problem with the gadget or even better, get a gift receipt. That way the person you're giving it to can take it back themselves if it's not working as it should or heaven forbid, they already have one.
