Zoomer Consumer: Gift Guide

Zoomer | November 16th, 2009

Your guide to the coolest gifts for your kids and grand-kids this holiday season.

For ages 6 and under:

Find the Sweet Spot
EA Sports’ new line of ‘Sweet Spot’ sports equipment reinforces proper technique with encouraging noises. Score a basket, spike a touchdow n or connect with a pitch in the sweet spot of the bat, and hear the crowd roar. Great for improving accuracy and hand-eye coordination. Prices range from approx. $14.99-$19.99, EA Sports.

Cure the Common Cold

Help Baby Ah-Choo get over the sniffles with an interactive thermometer, medicine and her box of tissues. Or just squeeze her belly and watch her sneeze. Approx. $42.99, Little Mommy.

Stimulus Package

Teach kids the basics of saving with Sebastian Socks It Away, written by Lori Mockson and Shirley Chewick, and illustrated by Claire MacDonald. The book even comes with its own sock bank, the perfect place to store holiday coins. Book and sock $19.95, sock only $6.95. The Original Sock Bank Company Inc.

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Best Spuds
With 40 different body parts and accessories to choose from it’s amazing so many silly faces can fit in one suitcase. The handy case lets you take your potato on the road and keeps pieces from getting lost. Mr. Potato Head Silly Suitcase $29.99.

The Little Engine that Could (Run On Batteries)

All aboard the Thomas Track Rider! This easy to operate train ride comes with an 8-foot circle of track, push buttons, start up train sounds and a working light. For added freedom it also runs on carpet and hard surfaces. As an added bonus, Mastermind will include 4 complimentary pieces of straight track with every purchse. $399.95, Mastermind Toys.

For ages 6-12:

Muscle Car Makeover

Quickly change the colour of your favourite car with hot or cold water. The two-in-one pack allows you and a partner to race right out of the box. Color Shifters 2-Pack, approx. $7, Hot Wheels.

Kubla Khan

The Colour Explosion Glow Dome allows kids to make their own glow-in-the-dark animations. Draw on the inside templates or right on the dome and watch your drawings come to life as the dome glows and spins. $32.99, Crayola.

Give Green

The newest Snap Circuits kit invites kids to experiment with green sources of power, including hydro, wind, solar chemical and mechanical. The 130 electronic projects included in the kit are easy to build and demonstrate the latest in alternative energy. Alternative Energy Kit, $79.95, Snap Circuits Green, Mastermind Toys.

Make it Work!
Aspiring designers will love the Project Runway Design Projector Kit. Use the projector to mix and match different traceable styles to create unique looks. $35.95, Mastermind Toys.

Drive You Up the Walls

The only disadvantage of the Zero Gravity Laser Car is having to stop dad from stealing it. Driven by laser pointer, this cool RC uses vacuum power to adhere to walls. $49.95, Mastermind Toys.

For teens:

Classroom drummer

Teachers will come to despise the constant tapping, but your child or grandkid will certainly hone their budding drum skills with these drumstick pencils – and they’ll do it outside of the home! How come no one thought of this before?

Simply Fabulous

Share your teenage favourites with your teenagers. Apple Corps Ltd. and EMI are releasing the entire Beatles catalogue on a special apple shaped, 16GB USB drive. Don’t miss out, only 30,000 will be made available.

Photo-tastic

Touch is definitely. HP jumps on touch technology big-time with their new line of printers. HP’s Photosmart A640 photo printer lets you view, edit and personliaze photos on it’s 3.45-inch touch screen – all without a computer. Plus print and share pics from Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. Printing has never been this fun.

iCool

You may look like Geordi La Forge from Star Trek (not that that’s a bad thing) with these goggles, but we think it’s worth it. Put them on and they will transform movies and television shows on your iPod and iPhone into a 24-inch image before your eyes.

Windows 7

Update your computer with the latest operating system from Windows. And no, this is not Vista v. 2.0 (thanks goodness). Microsoft spent considerable time designing the OS to be more user friendly and intuitive. Windows 7 will surely repair all the damage Vista did to Microsoft’s image.

For ages 19+:

Sharp Viewing

Sharp’s Aquos BD-HP22U Blu-Ray player will bring your movies to life with full 1080p hi-def picture quality and high fidelity audio. And if you still have a host of DVDs lying around, the player will upscale the playback signals to optimize the picture. Plus, hook it up to an Aquos LCD TV to take advantage of Aquos Link – seamless operation between both products with one control.

TV on the go

Your small screen now has some meaning.

While Slingbox, as revolutionary as it was when it came out, begins to lose some of its novelty with the proliferation of TV networks offering free streaming content online, it’s SlingPlayer Mobile is still at the top of our “useful and cool” list.

With a Slingbox hooked up to your home television, you can watch live TV on your mobile (BlackBerry, iPhone, Windows Mobile, Palm OS or Symbian) ensuring you don’t miss a minute of, well, anything!

Pocket theatre

The Cinemin Swivel places the big screen in your hands. Hook up the multimedia projector to other handheld devices, such as an iPod, to display video or images anywhere – on the ceiling, wall and floor with out a tripod or stand. And the Swivel can display a 60-inch image from over eight feet away. Now that’s big.

A gift that keeps giving
Roots teams up with Moosehead to offer a gift pack that makes too much sense. What’s included? A Roots scarf, two Moosehead glasses and two bottles of the golden adult beverage to get your night started. Cheers.

Make every word count

This BIC Sheaffer pen gift set makes the holidays count for something. Aside from the practicality of the gift, BIC Inc. plans to donate $10,000 to support breast cancer research. Now, that’s getting into the holiday spirit!