gifts

There's always at least one person on your holiday shopping list you put off as long as possible because he or she is such a pain to find something for.

You know these kinds of people. The insufferable wiseacre who insists he's easy to shop for when he's constantly looking for weird movies no one has heard of (more accurately, ones no one wants to watch), or talks about how he needs to add to his collection of '70s and '80s TV commercials. They're like gift hipsters. It would be too easy to just get them something readily available.

These are the people for whom gift cards were created.

Ah, but it doesn't have to be that way. With a minimum of fuss, you can get something unusual for that precious snowflake in your life without having to leave the house. Here, in no particular order, are five Crave-worthy ideas that don't involve your online shopping history being inexorably linked to movies with titles like "Blood Freak" or "The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies." … Read more

Have a family member who has an iTunes gift card on his or her Christmas list this holiday season?

Odds are you have at least one person who does. If you aren't the gift-card-giving type, however, and prefer something that requires a bit more thought be put into it, consider gifting an app.… Read more

Handwritten gift tags might be a thing of the past.

This holiday season, JC Penney is offering Santa Tags, a new option that allows gift-buyers to record voice messages for their recipients to play back upon unboxing their gifts. And it's all done with QR codes.

The voice message is attached to a QR code, which the recipient scans with a QR scanner on a mobile phone, and the voice note is instantly played back.

Pretty cool.

But you don't have to go to JC Penney to make this happen, because there's an even better DIY option … Read more

Cut the Rope, one of the hottest smartphone games, just got an update to the free standalone holiday version for both the iPhone and iPad (universal) featuring new challenges and holiday-themed levels.

Certain apps have staying power on the top-10 list at the iTunes App Store and Cut The Rope offers just the right mix of challenging physics-based gameplay, family-friendly graphics, and tons of levels to explore to keep it near the top.… Read more

Budget tech is one of our favorite categories here at CNET, so that's why we're running not one, but two budget tech gift roundups this year.

My compadre John Falcone put together a list of the 10 best el-cheapo tech products out there with his Best tech gifts under $50 feature.

I get a little more wiggle room with a $99.99 budget, which is why this list should really be called "Best tech gifts between $50 and $100." But more people are looking on Google for "best tech gifts under $100," so we'… Read more

Even I roll my eyes at those ads where someone gets a new car with a big, red bow on a snowy holiday morning. But when you think about it, a car is actually a pretty awesome gift.

Cars are more than just basic transportation these days. Pick the right ride, such as our top Holiday Gift Pick and Editors' Choice 2012 Audi A7, and you'll also be giving the gift of entertainment, safety, utility, and style. And while a car really is too big to be gift wrapped or stuffed into a stocking, you may be able to squeeze the diminutive 2012 Fiat 500 C under a big enough tree.

We acknowledge that a new car isn't always the best gift idea--maybe the car lover in your life already has a perfectly good set of wheels. Never fear, we have plenty of smaller car tech gift ideas as well. From radar detectors for speed demons to Bluetooth hands-free kits for motor mouths, sports cameras for daredevils, and GPS navigators for the perpetually lost, there's something for every sort of automotive enthusiast in our Car Tech Holiday Gift Guide.

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Chances are, there's someone on your holiday gift list asking for a tablet. The simplest solution, of course, is to buy that person an Apple iPad 2. It's our highest-rated tablet, and anyone who's ungrateful to receive one should (in my humble opinion) have his or her head examined.

But if an iPad's out of the question financially or you're shopping for someone who thinks of gingerbread as an Android OS rather than a tasty holiday treat, then there are some other tablet options to consider.

No matter what, we've got you covered.… Read more

Though not the sexiest products out there, printers and peripherals are some of the most useful. These are the types of products that sit in the backdrop of your tech life, unnoticed; but as soon as they're gone, you'll be ready to give your right arm to have them back.

Unless we're talking turkeys, you hopefully won't have to resort to too much dismembering with the list of top holiday printers and peripherals picks we've compiled. And no matter your poison, we've got you covered with a list that includes monitors, storage, input devices, … Read more

Gadgets make great gifts--for the recipients, at least. For the gift giver, however, tech products often mean a sizable bite out of the wallet. It's great to get an iPad--it's decidedly less enticing to pay for one.

Thankfully, there are some great tech gifts you can buy at far more reasonable prices--less than $50, to be precise.

We've scoured the Internet to find 10 worthy gifts that will cost you less than a Ulysses S. Grant. The list includes MP3 players, headphones, one great game for each major game console, and--our current favorite video streamer--the Roku LT (pictured above).

Got a favorite bargain gift that we skipped over? Let us know your suggestion in the comments.

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