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Research says that people tend to underestimate the cost of gifts they receive by up to 25 per cent. Bah humbug to all that, we say, and offer you this advice: level the playing field with our edit of the Christmas gift ideas we’ve found in the Black Friday sales so far. With these tech-inclined and quality geek gifts, they’ll be overestimating if anything.
In short, we grant you the gift of self-satisfied, secret smugness this year. Let it envelop you as your loved ones open these high-glory, cut-price presents.
Cyber Monday has arrived and discounts on a wide range of tech and gadgetry are now live. The WIRED team has uncovered the top deals around right now. Here’s the best Cyber Monday deals.
No sooner have we reviewed the intriguing Kindle Kids Edition and Amazon sticks it on sale. As it’s a rebadged basic Kindle, the saving essentially gets you all the kid-friendly features, like reading badges, fun animal screensavers and parental controls plus a year’s subscription to the Fire for Kids Unlimited library, for free. A neat get-out-gift that means you can cater to proto-bookworms without having to research what kids are reading these days.
Click here to save £40 on the Amazon Kindle Kids Edition
They don’t quite beat the audiophile-pleasing Sonys XM3s on sound but there’s just something about Bose headphones as a gift, isn’t there? This year’s Noise Cancelling 700s have a luxe finish and build quality, punchy sound and fine call quality, not to mention the excellent noise-blocking abilities. Perfect if you’re stuck for a high-impact present that still feels new.
Click here to save £40 on the Bose Noise Cancelling 700s
Purely for research purposes, we had a rummage around Amazon’s deals on booze and this Zacapa 23 Ron Centenario Sistema Solera Rum (70cl) is one of our drinks cabinet-worthy selections. It’s a fine spirit, with a blend of rums from six to 23 years - hence the name - and perfect for a classic daiquiri (yes, they can be made with dark rum). Smartly packaged in its gift-box, if you were inclined to buy ten of these for cousins and co-workers, the savings would soon stack up.
Click here to save £17 on Zacapa 23 Ron Centenario Sistema Solera Rum
This Philips Hue Twin Pack and Echo Dot bundle is essentially a smart-home-in-a-gift and crucially for your purposes, it’s the fun side of the smart home; asking Alexa to tell jokes via the mic-equipped Echo Dot smart speaker and changing the colours of the smart B22 light bulbs. Leave them to buy the smart thermostat themselves.
Click here to save £58 on the Philips Hue and Echo Dot bundle
Forget the overkill of the Dyson Supersonic, the GHD Air Hair Dryer aced our tests on temperature, speed and versatility, plus the decibel levels are worth it for the results. It performs pretty flawlessly on both fine and thick hair and GHD is still essentially the Tesla of hair products, despite the challengers. Brownie points sure to follow.
Click here to save £20 on the GHD Air Hair Dryer
You’ll have them at “Dino-Mech” with this LEGO Jurassic World set. It’s a good time to pick up LEGO sets generally, including £97 off the 7,500 piece Millennium Falcon kit. This Jurassic World set features posable T-Rex and dino-mech figures, a volcano and a gun-toting boat. There's not a whole lot to dislike here, even if no-one playing has seen the movie.
Click here to save £22 on the LEGO Jurassic World T-Rex vs Dino-Mech set
All manner of designers produce smartwatches in 2019, but if it’s shine and bling you’re looking for in a gift, consider the Michael Kors Access Runway . Suitably festive for a Wear OS watch, underneath the custom, fashion watchfaces there’s smartphone alerts, music controls, Google Pay and built-in GPS.
Click here to save £71 on the Michael Kors Access smartwatch
£35 off a Blue Yeti Mic, now £85: A present for future podcasters: Blue Microphones' excellent, plug and play USB mic for PC and Mac is down from £120 to £85 on Amazon.
Garmin's Forerunner 645 Music is down to £200: This beginner-friendly GPS running watch, with storage for 500 songs, is £75 off its original price and Argos has it lower priced than Amazon right now.
Get £118 off the Jura S8 Chrome coffee machine: The chrome model of our favourite coffee machine, the Jura S8 is down to £1,382 on Amazon right now. It has 15 coffee settings and it'll cater to green tea drinkers too.
£20 off UE Wonderboom 2, now £70: Jolly, jazzy stocking filler or a waterproof Bluetooth speaker that’s better than it has the right to be at this size? You decide. (OK, OK, it’s both).
£35 off a KitchenAid Classic, now £276: Consider this striking Classic stand mixer, with a 4.3L stainless steel bowl and direct drive motor, to grant your favourite whisker’s wishes.
£20 off Nike Vaporfly 4%, now £146: Last year’s Nike Vaporfly running shoes (RRP £209) will suit runners chasing PBs but not world records just fine.
£50 off an Amazon Kindle Oasis, now £180: High swoon alert, the Oasis really will spoil the recipient for any other Kindle, nevermind books. The original RRP of £230 is bordering on ludicrous when you consider how good Amazon’s basic e-readers are but the new temperature controls on the 2019 model help to justify it.
£60 off a Google Nest Hub, now £59: Another product that’s unexpectedly delightful to live with, the kitchen-friendly Nest Hub puts Google in the house without an extra camera and doubles up as a digital family photo frame.
💸 **View all Amazon Black Friday deals**⏲️ **View all Lightning Deals**💻 **View all laptop deals on Amazon**🎮 **View all gaming deals on Amazon**📺 **View all TV deals on Amazon**🏘️ View all smart home deals on Amazon
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
