So everyone told you to shop early but here we are anyway. Now it's time for Late Christmas Energy. You can still be thoughtful, just breathe and take a scroll through the WIRED team's gift edits. Because there's nothing more expensive than bad taste so, just for you, we've picked out the our finest gift ideas from under £50 to a handful of downright extravagant money-no-object selections. We'll continue to add to this list between now and the day itself.
And if it's tech toy gifts, Christmas gift ideas under £50, subscription boxes to send as gifts- or even Made in the UK gifts that should ship quickly - you know you're looking for, check out our dedicated edit with more of our favourite kid-friendly games plus tech for teens and beyond.
This track-by-track, year-by-year history of music, culture, politics, race and more is so accessible and yet so steeped into music lore as only Questlove can pull off. Don't let the colourful cover fool you - this is a serious, yet always playful, account of how music shaped not only the past 50 years of American culture but also the Roots frontman/drummer/DJ/director and cultural guide's own personal life. He dives into Miles Davis, Curtis Mayfield, disco, sampling, protest songs and, of course, hip hop. The music book of the year and a superb gift no matter the recipients' own levels of obsession.
Price: £22 | Amazon | Waterstones | Wordery
The Airwrap Special Edition Gift Set makes for a wow-factor gift for anyone who loves to style their locks. Designed to work with a range of hair lengths, it comes with six styler attachments to curl, wave, smooth, dry, brush and volumise. The beauty of Dyson’s range is that its intelligent heat control measures airflow temperatures over 40 times a second to regulate heat, which means you can style without the need for extreme heat. It comes beautifully presented with a Prussian blue and rich copper finish in a presentation case with travel pouch, which pretty much eliminates the need for wrapping paper.
Price: £450 | John Lewis | Dyson | Boots | Currys
The Glowforge is the ultimate gift for anyone keen to explore the world of 3D laser printing in detail. It is built to create anything you can think up from jewellery, toys, pet collars and homewares and uses a ‘beam of light the width of a human hair to cut, engrave and shape’ designs using a range of materials. These include cardboard, fabric, food, glass, hardwood, leather, metal and more, while its onboard cameras will display your design before you print. While it is an investment buy, it’s something that will encourage creativity, nurture imagination and serve the household time and time again.
Price: £2,995 | Glowforge
Dubbed the ‘Netflix for music’ by new users, a subscription to Roxi would make a great gift and add a lot of fun to family get togethers. As well as giving you access to over 70 million music releases with all the original music videos, Roxi has its own Karaoke section where you can sing along to your song favourites spanning rock, pop and indie through the decades from likes of The Beatles to Elton John, Kylie and Dua Lipa. Log onto the website to find out how you can downloaded the Roxi app for free to your TV be it via SkyQ, FireTV, Android TV, Google TV or others. There is also an optional upgrade to Roxi Premium, which gives you ad-free access to all of Roxi’s features for £7 per month. When you sign up to Roxi Premium you get a free Karaoke Mic worth £30 as part of the package too.
Price: Free for the Roxi app and £7 for Roxi Premium | Roxi
Lock ins have taken on a whole new meaning in the last year as the popularity in ‘escape room’ evenings out have sorn in popularity. You can now bring the experience home with the Epic Escapes game. Inside it has everything you need to transform a room at home into an escape room - with challenging puzzles and clues to help you get out. This Escape Room in a Box actually features three different escape games you can play called Hijack, Pirary and Crime, is suitable for up to 6 players and comes with its own lock. You have 60 minutes to solve each puzzle.
Price: £99 | Epic Escapes
Give anyone who loves to bake traditional cakes a new challenge with this Polaroid 3D Pen. They can use it to create their own eye-catching and unique sweets – that are sugar-free, vegan and have natural flavorings, A first for the 3D pen market, the CandyPlay comes with size colorful flavors that can also be used to get inventive with cake decoration. With the start position on the top panel of the 3D pen, its ergonomically designed for ease of use for both left and right handers. Stencils can also be downloaded from the Polaroid website so users can follow the guides to make candy flowers, numbers, seasonally themed-designs and more.
Price: £30 | Amazon | Maplin | Polaroid
If you haven’t already heard about the joys of the Cricut, it’s time to pull your head out of the sand. Cricut sells a range of cutting and writing machines that make for the perfect one-stop shop for all things crafting. The compact Cricut Joy, for example, is a great tool to have around the house for a number of DIY and art-inspired projects. You can use it to upcycle items such as cushions, personalise things such as mugs and jumpers, organise and label bags and kitchen jars and also produce fun crafts such as Christmas crackers, cards and decorations. It comes with an accompanying Design Space app that you’ll need to subscribe to and link to wirelessly so you can make use of the vast amount of craft ideas such as making a garden tool organiser or a snacks for Santa tray.
Price: £140 | Amazon | John Lewis | Argos
We’re officially declaring it inoffensive to give someone an appliance as a Christmas gift. When they come as fun as the Star Wars R2D2 designed Instant Pot, that is. Reasonably priced sub-£100, the Instant Pot not only looks fun on the worktop and creates a talking point with guests, but it comes with lots of useful features. You can use it to cook up to five portions at the touch of a button. Use it to pressure cook, sauté, steam, slow cook and warm, which makes it ideal for quick-fix weekday bolognese or slow-cooked sunday hot pots.
Price: From £80 | Amazon | Lost Universe
For those who love watching movies, but just don’t have the space for a large 85-inch TV, a mini projector makes for a thrill-seeking gift. A great way to add a new dimension to film night, the Epson EF-11 Full HD Mini Projector is easy to plug and play on any white backdrop and with 3LCD technology and a Full HD 1080p image, you’ll get a clear and colorful image. At 1.2kg it’s light enough to carry from room to room and you can use it to easily display content from a bunch of streaming devices including phones, laptops and consoles.
Price: £760 | Amazon | Richer Sounds | Epson
“Game streaming is the future,” cried Google Stadia, as the battlegrounds of Destiny 2 on the fledgling streaming service were as quiet as a library. But, the statement itself isn’t wrong, with Xbox really taking things to the next level by expanding Game Pass. Backbone has a hand in this too, with a stellar and stylish game controller for the iPhone. Apple’s derision for game streaming apps means you’ll need a Safari-entangled work around but it’s ace when you get going.
Price: £100 | Amazon | Backbone
Lights, sounds, a car and spiderman will make any young child with a love of fast-paced superhero action will love this Spidey playset. With light and sound effects, kids can zoom Spidey in his web-crawler car down the web ramps and enjoy 360-play with a helipad, communications headquarters, web jail and more. The set is also compatible with other Spidey vehicles and figures such as Ghost-spider, Techno-Racer and Copter-Cycle. At 15 inches it makes for a wow-factor toy that takes up quite a bit of room. It is unfortunately a bit of an eye-sore - no Montersorri wooden boxes being ticked here we’re afraid - but kids will love it. And hey, if you’re giving it as a gift you needn’t worry about the practicalities – it’s Christmas, after all.
Fans of the traditional-looking wireless will be pleased to hear that Robert Radio has added to its collection with this rather cool vintage Revival Petite. Good looks are just one of the enticing features, however. It’s unique in that it’s small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, but this doesn’t compromise on sound quality. It makes up for its size with a nifty bass radiator for punching out rich sound on DAB/DAB+/FM radio. It also offers Bluetooth connection for listening to the radio or streaming music from your smartphone. With 20 hours of playback on a single charge, it comes in six classic colours including Dusky Pink, Midnight Blue, Sunburst Yellow, Black, Duck Egg and - our fave - Pop Orange.
Price: £99 | Amazon | John Lewis | Currys
Kids walkie talkie toys can be hit and miss, but we think the National Geographic 2-piece FM Walkie Talkie Set is definitely a hit. For a start it comes with a satisfying 6km range, so two kids can duck behind sofas, crawl under dining tables, roll under carpets and let any other fixture in the house come between them and still get decent reception. The set does work best outside on uninterrupted terrain however, and comes with a useful belt to clip on so kids can use hands-free mode. The LCD display, 10 ringtones and a built-in flashlight is great for use on darker, more adventurous, days.
Price: £36.50 | Amazon | Bresser
PastBook's website and iPhone app automatically scans through your photos on your phone or social media accounts such as Instagram and Facebook and selects the best photos to include in a memory book. It’s quick to choose the selection and can do it in under 60 seconds. All you need to do next is have a quick scan of the pages and delete any photos you don’t want to include, add images or edit and click to buy. What we particularly like about the app when using it to import Instagram photos is that it includes your Instagram captions on each photo, which makes for a great keepsake.
Prices: From £14 | PastBook
For any friend or family member who is working from home, the Logitech MX Keys Mini makes for an actually quite thoughtful gift. This high-tech and compact portable Bluetooth keyboard lets you switch between multiple connected devices such as your Mac, PC or tablet. With backlit keys and an ergonomically designed keypad, it makes typing much more comfortable compared to on a standard trackpad. If you’re feeling particularly generous you can team it with the MX Anywhere 3. Nearly silent, it offers precise scrolling and it's fast enough to scroll 1,000 lines in a second.
MX Keys Mini: £100 | Amazon | Logitech | Argos
MX Anywhere 3: £62 | Amazon | John Lewis | Logitech
The Oculus Quest 2 has been around for some time now but no one has managed to beat its combination of ease of set up/use and affordable price. It’s just a great pick if you fancy watching more than comatose, food stuffed relatives at Christmas. This will get them up and flailing. Make sure to have them use the straps on the controllers though or you may end up with one in your cranberry sauce.
Price: £299 | Amazon | Argos | Oculus
The Pixel range has been the nearly phone for many years and, in 2021, it finally got close enough for a lot of people. While the new Google Pixel 6 still isn’t perfect, it’s new design is certain to turn heads and a new camera system – with bumper software fun to boot – will leave you amazed by the results. Google finally paid more attention to the Pixel and, what do you know, it’s pretty darn good.
Price: £599 | Amazon | Argos | Currys
Anker loves to hitch its waggon to Apple, and why wouldn’t it. The accessory titan smartly upgraded its chargers when Tim Cook saw fit to ditch the iPhone’s plug and, now, Anker is all over tech that works with the phone’s recently added magnets. These new MagGo accessories are neat touches like a foldable stand attached to a battery pack or two different types of raised holders for your compact magnetic chargers too.
Price: From £15 | Amazon | Anker
The Nintendo Switch is already pretty great, bringing a range of classics like Nintendo Kart Racers and indie titles like The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild together in a commute-filling wonder. Jokes aside, the selection of games is amazing so what else is there to do than go bigger and brighter – enter the OLED model. There’s increased internal storage for your 7th purchase of Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and a big upgrade to the original Switch’s god-awful kickstand too.
Price: £310 | Argos
What do you buy for the musician who has everything? Something they probably already have but then whack smart on the front of it. Thankfully, the Positive Grid Spark is more than the sum of its amp and smart parts. The amp, along with all the enhanced musical goodness you’d expect, offers up a range of features to help enhance your playing. Smart Jam is there to learn all musician’s quirks and offer up accompanying bass and drums while Auto Chords offers up guidance for playing along to tracks. There’s also over 10,000 tones for you to mess around with to your rhythm-loving heart’s content.
Price: £236 | Amazon | Positive Grid
When Carl Pei announced he was leaving OnePlus few thought we’d see nothing else from him but as soon as his new company was announced we knew there’d be something of a cascade of truly naff jokes – see above. But, what isn’t a joke, is the absolutely stunning value the Nothing Ear 1 wireless buds offer. In a world where Apple just announced AirPods 3 for £70 more, with almost half as many modern features, these transparent wonders make Mr. Cook and co look a bit silly.
It is rare for a piece of tech to truly blow your socks off, especially in this line of work, but tech reviewer or typical Bluetooth speaker-enjoyer, the JBL Go 3 elicits the same response. The reaction is one of a jaw on the floor as this miniature wonder puts out a loud sound that manages to maintain decent quality too. It's a durable chap too, should it get chucked off a wall and dropped in a river – maybe don’t do either anyway though.
Hasselblad is as respected as brands get on the photography scene and this classic medium format camera aims to celebrate with a special anniversary presentation box. Along with the luxurious chrome and leatherette finish, there’s a control grip and a viewfinder. The photography aficionados who receive this as an extremely thoughtful gift will find a CVF II 50C digital back and XCD 3,5/30 lens.
Price: £13,900 | Park Cameras | Hasselblad
Noticeably sleeker than your average design, the Micro Chilli Rocky Pro Base Stunt Scooter provides the ideal chance for young kids to practise their stunt skills. It suits a range of rider heights from 141-170cm and comes in a choice of six colours to suit all tastes. Aimed at ages 5 and up, it has a lightweight deck and is constructed from 6061 aluminium with universal HIC compression and a flex brake. Its design gives it the perfect proportions for kids to stay in control on the 110m wheels while they flip and move, whizz around and go off piste - and all the other things that give you heart palpitations when you see your child whizzing around on a scooter.
Price: £90 | Micro-Scooters
As Annie once sang, “the sun will come out tomorrow,” but, if the spunky redhead told you that while donning a pair of these solar-powered headphones, she’ll find she’s lost her backing track. A suitable backing track for Urbanista upon releasing the Los Angeles headphones would have been We Are The Champions as, remarkably, its solar-powered claims regarding these ear-warmers fully stack up. These headphones self-charge via the onboard solar cell material and it truly means you don’t have to worry about keeping them charged – the big ball of fire in the sky does all the hard work.
Price: £169 | Urbanista
Ideal for rainy day construction, this STEM Motorized Supercar model building kit includes 347 parts, tools and working lights. While it’s aimed at ages 10 and up, younger kids will no doubt enjoy watching and helping to create the different 25 toy car configurations that are possible. You can adjust the speed and LED piping to get working head and rear lights so it looks as close to the real thing as possible. The 6V motor will also get the car moving. If you want to add to the range, you can also tackle the Erector pull-back car and Ducati Desmosedici GP model motorcycle in the Meccano motors collection.
Price: £35 | Amazon | Smyths Toys
The thought of having a pencil made of brass that could cut it in outer space is a sure fire way to liven up anyone’s Xmas. This all-metal mechanical pencil from Wingback fits 10x more lead than your average scribbler and was created using cross-continent nous – from England to Japan.
Price: £95 | Wingback
Big sound doesn’t have to mean uglifying your living room with chonky and industrial-looking speakers. These silky music-deliverers are stylish in all the right places. Ditching artificial colouring might make for a bit of a buzzkill when it comes to the sweets in your corner shop, but its absence here makes for refreshing cool and muted design. Audiophiles will get bang for their buck via the Concept 30's hefty 5in mid/bass driver and 0.9in tweeter.
Price: from £899 | Sevenoaks
Working from home or living the hybrid life (and not in the Toyota Prius kinda way) means cables, dongles and hubs are an irksome, bag-filling requirement. This Hyperdrive for iPads attempts to sort the faff by providing a litany of ports in a hub weighing just 46g and less than 10cm in length. As the name suggests, there’s some delightfully showy media buttons plonked on top too.
Price: £80 | Amazon | HyperShop
Think good watches have to cost more than £100? Well, gee, you’re in for a shock. The Casio GA-2100 is an understated throwback to the company’s classic 1983 model – a bright spot in a year that saw a total eclipse of Bonnie Tyler’s heart. This G-Shock is as tough as both old boots and sports 200m water resistance and resistance.
“Who doesn’t love a Bluetooth tracker?” said Tile back in the mid-2010s. Last year, Apple finally decided the answer was “iPhone users” and launched its take on Tile’s winning formula. The diddy pucks are extremely useful nonetheless and can be teamed up with a range of accessories to whack them on your keys, in your bag or, even, attached to a laptop or bike.
An inspired gift for fans of Marvel or simply anyone who loves a challenge comes the latest offering from LEGO. Aimed at young adults 14+ and designed to improve finger dexterity, LEGO Marvel The Guardians’ Ship has 1,901 pieces in the box. Once constructed it rotates on an adjustable stand and has an opening cockpit to house and reveal the characters inside – Thor holding a doughnut is a favorite of ours.
For something a little easier that is suited to 8+, the LEGO Marvel Black Panther Dragon Flyer is also worth consideration. It includes 202 pieces in the box and there’s a futuristic Wakandan flyer with four adjustable wings to be made. The three figures include Black Panther, his sister Shuri and an evil Chitauri warrior who comes with a power blaster.
The Guardians’ Ship: £122 | Amazon | Lego
Black Panther Dragon Flyer: £18 | Amazon | Lego
When Razer’s workshop isn’t busy with creating in (and on) your face LED masks and a seemingly endless troves of gaming accessories, it's dipping its toe in more lifestyle-focused products – products that you wouldn’t be ashamed to wear out in public. The Razer Opus X is at the forefront – a mix of mobile gaming headset and headphones for wearing just about anywhere.
Price: £100 | Amazon | Argos | Razer
The My First Camera Insta 2 has a digital screen and can produce instant photos; the best of both worlds for young snappers. The HD camera offers instant print on both the front and selfie camera. But what we love most about this design is the way it uses thermal paper and printing technology to produce photos. This means that there's no worrying about refilling the ink - and the photo pack running out after 12 quick snaps. Each roll of printing paper will let you print up to 60 sheets on the pre-loaded pictures frames, which is really rather satisfying.
Price: £99 | Amazon | My First
A lot of beard trimmers are about throwing every add-on guard or tool under the sun into a product but, unless a trimmer is getting shared around (eww), it’ll likely be touching one face... one beard. This Remington beard trimmer features a few different guards and once a decision has been made about length is best, it does an accurate and precise job. Simplicity is good.
Batman may have made his first appearance in 1939, but this RC car keeps his transport fresh at least. This 2.4 GHz dual joystick remote control car lets you ride from water to rough terrain and can tackle snow, mud, rock and grass. Quite whether you’d like to mess up the custom-performance tyres by actually riding through mud is up to you, however. You can control the remote up to 100 metres away and it includes out-of-range sensors so you know when it’s time to reel it in. Compatible with 10cm Batman figures (sold separately) you can use it for 25 minutes continuously on a 60 minute charge.
Price: £76 | Amazon | Smyths Toys
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
