Christmas Gift Guide 2024
As the festive season approaches, the search for the perfect Christmas gifts should be a delightful task, unfortunately it’s often more of a daunting one. Our Christmas Gift Guide is a curated selection of unique and interesting products picked from those we’ve reviewed this year. Whether you’re looking for thoughtful presents for loved ones or delightful treats for yourself, this guide offers a range of options suitable for every taste and budget. From innovative gadgets, to stocking fillers. Merry Christmas!
With its superb glass stylish charging base, 14 day battery life, quiet yet powerful performance, app coaching if you need it, alerts if you're pressing too hard, BrushSync tech that monitors and informs when the brush head needs to be replaced, the Philips Sonicare DiamondClean Smart 9400 Electric Toothbrush combines a nice combination of the tried and tested with some new ideas, making it a top choice for those looking for a comfortable brushing experience, with a good variety of brush head types to choose from, cultivating long-term oral health benefits.
The iKago Smart Mug Warmer ends the joylessness of tepid coffee, tea, or hot chocolates this festive season, enabling your hot drink of choice to remain (or become warmer if you’d like) at the temperature it was served until the last drop. It’s very pleasant indeed and quickly becomes an unassuming normality. If the nice mug supplied were proprietary, we’d be less enthused about this proposition. However, because the hot plate coaster is compatible with a wide range of ceramic mugs (in all our various shapes and sizes), is quick at reheating if a mug gets misplaced, and precisely shows the temperature and target via a display, it all makes it a dependable desk buddy, especially on winter days.
The iRig Stream Pro is a good blend of functionality, performance, and user-friendly design that stands out as a fully mobile and pocketable audio interface solution. Truly adaptable to various setups, which is very much to its credit. Our usage boldly demonstrates it's a great piece of kit that performs well beyond just spoken voice; acoustics and electric guitars stand out for us due to its built-in pre-amp with a tremendous pickup pattern. Aimed at streamers, DJs, and podcasters, it will definitely find favour among these communities for its plug-and-play attitude, allowing for a versatile array of combined input/output options, high-quality stereo inputs paired with other audio sources, and total feedback to headphones.
It is easy to overlook the importance of an excellent office chair and we hadn’t realised just how our other studio chair models had been under-supporting us until we sat in the stylish and customisable (at the point of order) Slouch chair. It embodies ambidextrous excellence and it is now blatant just how important it is to seamlessly blend comfort and functionality, and in doing so enhance productivity, into our creative workspace. Its precision adjustments and ergonomic features make it a valuable addition, ensuring a more comfortable and efficient work experience for everyone in our studio.
Benks Accessories
For iPhone 16 owners this Christmas, Benks offers a range of thoughtful, practical accessories that bring both joy and security to any iPhone user. The ArmorAir 600D for iPhone 16 Pro and ArmorTint for iPhone 16 Pro Max provide sleek profiles with substantial drop protection, making them stylish yet robust choices. We particularly love the Benks MagClap Phone Grip & Stand—it’s a perfect stocking stuffer that functions as a rock-solid stand and doubles as a fun, fidget-proof grip.
JOBY Beamo MagSafe Ring Light (£45.95)
A perfect stocking filler for anyone who enjoys taking great photos and videos with their iPhone. This compact, lightweight ring light easily attaches with MagSafe, giving a significant lighting upgrade for selfies, video calls, and content creation on the move. It has adjustable brightness settings for different lighting needs, making it ideal for social media lovers or anyone wanting to look good on Christmas Zoom calls. This handy accessory adds studio-quality lighting to any iPhone user's collection.
The Mammotion LUBA 2 is a robot lawnmower that even the most dedicated manual mowing enthusiast would appreciate. With its advanced engineering, it delivers a build that tops anything we’ve seen in the robotic outdoor space to date and most importantly it delivers plush and evenly cut striped lawns, effortlessly handling everything from steep slopes to uneven terrain across multiple zones that are easily set up with no need for a perimeter wire. Quiet, very precise and speedy, the LUBA 2 sets a new standard in robotic lawn care and we’re excited to see what the company does next.
The NYXI Warrior is the most compelling evolution of the original GameCube controller we’ve yet to use, one that feels and plays better than their previous Wizard controller we rated 4.5 stars. The Warrior has been created to exude nostalgia, even featuring original hardware details such as the analog triggers with adjustable draw amounts, but underneath the robust controller's build is top notch technology like optical microswitches that harness precise and responsive inputs. Overall button feel has been significantly improved from the already good Wizard and even the Nintendo Pro controller with certain games, like Super Mario RPG, that demand accuracy in timed button inputs. Also featured once again are the silky smooth with great travel Hall Effect thumbsticks/joysticks, that basically use a magnetic system to avoid wear and therefore stick-drift. It’s a wonderfully comfortable and tactile controller for modern gaming on the Nintendo Switch, and it’s also nice to see a new controller release for the GameCube in 2024 too, with that supplied adapter making it totally plug and play.
Having the ELECFREAKS CM4 XGO-Lite Robot Dog Kit is like having a Boston Dynamics robot on a micro scale, featuring a superbly constructed modular design with a well-machined exterior body. It makes perfect sense in educational settings due to its comprehensive programming abilities. The hardware and software integration is capable of so much, with out-of-the-box demos showcasing impressive real-time voice, visual, and gesture recognition. For us, its flagship feature is the agility of the design, particularly the CM4 XGO-Lite Robot Dog's ability to counter any unsteadiness itself in real-time, just like a real dog, while travelling at speed on various surfaces when using the app as a remote control. This is seriously astonishing to witness! Improvements we’d suggest include making the process of connecting to a Wi-Fi network clearer and incorporating a touchscreen to make control easier and more intuitive.
Milky Plant is a novel idea that succeeds in making silky smooth and tasty fresh plant based milks from nuts, seeds and grains. Maintenance is minimal, with the plastic filter unit housing being self-cleaning and only a rinse of the filter itself needed. Its by-product of dried pulp could be useful for recipes too. Despite its initial cost, the potential for long-term savings is apparent, although considerations for fortification may be necessary, which could eat into those savings. Beyond milk, the Milky Plant opens doors to culinary experimentation, offering a range of delightful recipes to explore.
