CLEVELAND — It’s that time of year when we’re looking for the perfect gifts for family and friends. Because you almost can’t go wrong with a tech gift, Consumer Reports rounded up a few ideas for everyone on your list.
First up, for the music or podcast lover: a new speaker. There are a lot of things to like about the Sonos One (Gen 2) Smart Speaker for $220 ($270 in Canada). It sounds great, and that’s really the most important thing with any speaker. It supports Amazon’s Alexa and Google Assistant, and it works with Apple Music, Amazon Music, and Pandora.
Next, the Motorola Moto G Stylus Smartphone with a large 6.8-inch display is a great gift at $400 ($500 in Canada). It’s hard to believe you get so many features for the price. They include a high screen refresh rate, battery life of 32-plus hours, a rarely seen SD card for expandable storage, and the nearly extinct headphone jack.
The Microsoft Surface Laptop Go 2 with a 12.4-inch touchscreen display is the perfect gift for someone on the go. It’s also a CR Smart Buy, which means it’s a great value at $570 ($740 in Canada). It weighs only 2 and a half pounds, and CR’s testing shows it has 12 hours of battery life. It has an Intel Core i5-1135G7 2.42GHz processor, 4GB RAM, and a 128GB solid-state drive.
Last but not least, a TV and soundbar is a great gift for anyone this holiday season. The Sonos Ray Soundbar Speaker for $280 ($350 in Canada) is the least expensive Sonos soundbar that you can buy. And it has impressive sound quality for its size, which makes it good not only for watching movies and playing video games but also for listening to music. And it can be paired with other Sonos speakers for surround sound in your living room or for a whole home audio system.