Christmas Gift Guide 2024: Gadgets & Tech

2024 may just be the year of the iPhone Pro. Long kept in the shadow of its bigger, more fully-featured sibling, the Pro Max, the Pro has received a welcome upgrade this year, making the iPhone 16 Pro arguably the best ‘small’ phone on the market.

No longer denied the 5x zoom camera of its larger sibling, the 16 Pro is now a top-of-the-line iPhone but with a more compact profile that allows for single-handed use. Plus, the improved battery puts it on a par with last year’s 15 Pro Max (around 14 hours in real terms), meaning you won’t run out of juice at the tail end of the day, either — another check in the ‘win’ column.

The 16 Pro has a fractionally bigger screen than the 15 Pro, with the same always-on, 120Hz display, which remains one of the best smartphone screens we’ve encountered. That 5x zoom, combined with the 48-megapixel standard and ultra-wide lenses, delivers outstanding image quality across the board, genuinely making us question the need for a dedicated DSLR when you have something this capable resting in your back pocket. And if you’re lucky enough to own Apple’s Vision Pro, you can even shoot spatial video (and photos) for viewing on the headset, putting you in proper sci-fi territory with 3D holographic snaps.

The big external change to the 16 Pro also involves the camera. It now has a dedicated camera button, which co-exists alongside last year’s action button (now free to do something else). This not only fires up the camera app but also lets you take pictures and adjust settings on the fly, massively speeding up your shutter time.

A glorious handset from top to bottom.

While Sonos is primarily known for its speaker and home cinema ecosystem, the company ventured into the headphone space this year with the Sonos Ace — their first set of cans aimed squarely at the high-end consumer.

From an aesthetics standpoint, these headphones have a pleasantly understated vibe, featuring sleek, low-profile ear cups, a classy matte black (or white) exterior, and a comfortable foam headband. Quality-wise, there’s certainly nothing to complain about here. The fidelity is on par with what you’d expect from Sonos and can rival any premium headphones, delivering even, balanced audio with punchy treble and solid bass. If you’re using them on your commute, you’ll also appreciate the active noise cancelling.

If home cinema rather than music on the move interests you, this is where the Ace headphones truly shine. Connectable with Sonos’ soundbar range, they can instantly take over your home cinema audio — perfect for watching the latest Mission: Impossible without waking the kids. The immersive surround sound supports proper head tracking, ensuring you never lose the sense of spatial audio.

If you already have a Sonos cinema system, these headphones are a perfect addition.

VR is undeniably cool, but it’s also expensive. The Quest 3S is Meta’s attempt to address this issue, providing an experience nearly on a par with the more expensive Quest 3, but with a few hardware tweaks to allow for a more competitive price point.

Like its bigger sibling, the Quest 3S is a completely standalone VR unit with no trailing wires to trip over or external battery pack. You simply designate the real-world boundaries for the VR space in your home (so you don’t end up falling over the sofa), and off you go.

The Quest 3S functions as both a VR and a mixed-reality headset, supporting games that cater to both modes of play. There’s even an action button to instantly switch modes — a feature not present on the Quest 3. While the lenses are a slight downgrade, using 1832 x 1920 Fresnel lenses, the quality dip isn’t significant enough to distract during intense gaming sessions.

Speaking of gaming, the Quest catalogue has expanded impressively over the past few years. It now features a vast array of titles, from ports of mainstream games like Resident Evil 4 to VR favorites such as Pistol Whip and the fiendishly addictive Beat Saber. While the graphical fidelity can’t compete with the PSVR2 (this is a mobile unit, after all), the Quest 3S is an extremely capable, wire-free headset. It offers an excellent and affordable way to dip your toe into the VR waters.

What better present to give during this chilly festive season, than the gift of warmth? The Ploov by Stoov is, it turns out, as delightful to use as it is to say, being an electric cushion that will heat you up during those frosty December evenings. Unlike much of its competition, the Ploov is an entirely wireless device, with a 5 hour rechargeable battery (2.5 hours on the hottest setting) that can move around with you, without going tepid (or scalding you!) like an old school hot water bottle. Overheat protection keeps it safe, and the long-wave infrared heating technology is surprisingly effective, with three distinct heat settings (38 degrees, 45 and 58) to suit your particular thermal preference. Whether you’re after something to help keep the heating bills manageable or just something to keep you toasty while you fire up the Gavin And Stacey Christmas special, Stoov’s Ploov is a delightful way to warm your cockles of an evening.

It’s hard to deny that Apple has the smartwatch market pretty much sewn up. The Apple Watch has long been head and shoulders above the wearable competition, and its lead only lengthened this year with the introduction of the Apple Watch 10 — somehow managing to be thinner, lighter, and bigger than any Apple Watch to date.

With a gorgeous 989 sq mm display (you need to see it to believe it), this is the largest watch screen Apple has ever released. It allows for easy readability and, thanks to the wide-angle OLED, provides excellent off-angle viewing — essential when sneaking a furtive look at your notifications. At 9.7mm, it’s also 10% thinner than the previous model and comes in either traditional aluminium or the new titanium for a solid, semi-indestructible vibe.

The addition of a 1Hz refresh rate finally lets you have a ticking second hand on the always-on display. The built-in speaker can now play music capably, while voice isolation technology makes watch-based calls more practical, letting you live out your ’80s Knight Rider fantasies.

If you prefer a more rugged aesthetic, the Ultra 2 offers a chunkier, more hard-wearing design and a handy action button. This can be assigned to various functions, including using the ultra-bright 3000-nit display (the Series 10 tops out at 2000) as a torch. The Ultra 2 also now comes in a black titanium finish, perfect for the ultimate outdoor cool.

Belkin has a long history of making quality accessories, and this nifty little stand is no exception. A compact and highly useful charging station for both your iPhone and Apple Watch, this charging dock stands out thanks to its minimalist, pleasing aesthetic and practicality as a desktop or bedside stand.

With built-in MagSafe, it allows you to mount your phone horizontally and angle it to your preference, placing the device into StandBy mode and instantly transforming it into a natural bedside alarm clock. The base is gratifyingly weighty, too, ensuring it won’t tip over or follow the phone when you detach it from the magnetic mount.

It also supports 15W fast charging, so you won’t have to wait all night for your phone — or watch — to juice up.

You know what the ideal gift to give this Christmas is? Air. Pure, pollution-free air, in fact, and that’s just what BlueAir’s small but mighty Mini Max delivers. A pint sized yet surprisingly efficient air purifier at a very attractive price, the Mini Max uses the same technology of BlueAir’s larger filters, but in a desk-sized, perfectly portable shell. At just 17cm tall, this won’t stick out like a sore thumb when stashed next to the monitor in your home office and yet can happily filter out airborne contaminants, giving you breathable, impurity-free air, having sifted particles down to 0.1 microns - even Ant-Man isn’t getting through this thing! So if you have pets, cigars or simply live in London, you might want to invest in one of these easy to operate marvels to improve the very air you breathe.

If there’s one thing that modern games consoles lack for, it’s storage. With games routinely taking up gargantuan amounts of space on your console’s paltry internal SSD, it only takes a handful of titles before you’re out of space an need to offload. Enter the Game Drive: an external SSD that aims to free you from the shackles of limited space. Vastly quicker than equivalent hard drive storage, SSD is definitely the way to go, and Seagate’s Game Drive goes one better by incorporating a striking PlayStation aesthetic, complete with LED power strip so that it fits in perfectly with your PS5. While you can’t play PS5 games off the drive directly (though you can play legacy PS4 titles), you can offload anything you’re not currently playing to the drive and then copy it back to internal storage when you need it. And with SSD transfer speeds, that’s something that proves surprisingly quick and easy to do. The Game Drive comes in 1TB ad 2TB capacities and looks great sitting next to your console. What’s not to love?

Marshall might be primarily known for the stacks of amps you see blasting noise at gigs, but their range of headphones and speakers offers a more compact, personal sound without compromising on quality.

This appealingly amp-like speaker sits at the higher end of the portable speaker range while retaining a modest yet rugged form factor. It’s substantial without being cumbersome. From an audio perspective, the Middleton performs well, thanks to dual 15W woofers and 10W tweeters, delivering a powerful, vibrant sound that belies its compact dimensions.

The sound profile can also be fine-tuned via the EQ in the Marshall app. Plus, it’s IP67-rated, making it more than waterproof enough to survive the occasional dip. And with a generous 20-hour battery life, you won’t be left unexpectedly sitting in silence either.

If Apple has the high end of the wearable spectrum in hand, tip your hat to Huawei, who have managed to work wonders for those on a budget.

The latest iteration of their Watch Fit range has transitioned from fitness tracker to fully functional smartwatch, sporting a new square, more watch-like aesthetic. With a crown for scrolling and a side button for selection, the layout will certainly feel familiar. The 1.82” AMOLED screen, boasting 1500 nits of brightness, is crisp, vibrant, and supports an always-on mode for those who want their information available at a glance.

Huawei’s Harmony OS is straightforward and easily navigable, and it’s compatible with both Android and iPhone, so you’re not locked out of an ecosystem. With contactless payment, extensive fitness tracking, and GPS, the Watch Fit 3 crams a host of features into a very aggressively-priced package.

Amazingly, it manages to go a full week before needing a charge, making this a strong contender for the best budget smartwatch on the market.

Sometimes, you just have to accept that something is made with arcade wizardry, which might be the case with Apple’s new AirPods 4. These add active noise cancelling that seems to fly in the face of accepted headphone physics.

Anyone with a pair of AirPods Pro will already be familiar with Apple’s clever blend of full noise cancelling, transparency, and adaptive noise cancelling, facilitated by the Pro model’s silicone tip and sound isolation seal. The AirPods 4, on the other hand, have no such seal and retain the open design regular AirPods have had since their inception. And yet… the ANC still works, and works well.

This fourth iteration does come in a version without ANC, but it’s the top-end model that’s most impressive, bridging the gap between the entry-level model and the pricier Pros. The slight tweak to the AirPods design makes them lighter and more comfortable in the ear, but the real feat here is how well the noise cancelling functions despite the lack of physical isolation from background noise.

If in-ear silicone tips don’t suit you and over-the-head cans are a pain, these might just be the perfect headphones for everyday use. If you want on-bud volume control, then you’ll still need the AirPods Pro, but these are now a great alternative at a more aggressive price point.

Traditional photo frames are ancient relics these days, but if you still want to give a photographic gift this Christmas, the Aura Walden has you covered.

Digital photo frames can be a bit of a mixed bag, but Aura has pulled out all the stops with this stunning 15” frame. Luxuriously large and beautifully presented with a delicate black border and thick white mount, it feels tasteful and expensive rather than gadget-like and plasticky.

It can also be set to either vertical or horizontal orientation and can be wall-mounted or placed on a (large) shelf or table, thanks to the built-in stand. Helpfully, it’s made with gifting in mind, allowing you to pre-load it with photos (they’re all streamed from the cloud, an account for which can be configured ahead of time) so it’s all ready to go on Christmas day.

If you have the room for it, this may just be the best-looking digital frame on the market.

Gaming headsets are essentially a must for anyone without an all-encompassing home cinema system (or those with thin walls and angry neighbours). They enable you to detect enemies with pinpoint accuracy while bringing titles to life with immersive sound.

Turtle Beach’s Stealth 700s provide a great balance of performance and price, delivering detailed, rich sound with a restrained, minimalist (for gaming cans) design. The selling points here, though, are a combination of a generous 80-hour battery life and the inclusion of dual USB dongles for Cross Play. These let you switch between console and PC audio at the press of a button.

There’s simultaneous wireless and Bluetooth functionality, too, meaning you can listen to the Empire (or Pilot TV!) podcast while gaming, improving the experience in every conceivable way.