Perfect presents for everyone on your holiday list, selected by our editors.

By Salon staff

Nov. 26, 2007 |

Salon's writers and editors have handpicked tasteful, sure-to-please holiday gifts for everyone from the pet lover to the book hound, the aesthete to the kiddies, the culture vulture to the outward bound, and they're all available online, just a click away. You'll find splurges, bargains and lots of things in between. And they are all gifts we feel good about recommending to you. We're also offering the service of our Holiday Coupon again this year, for those personal wishes or a big fat IOU. And when you've checked off each and every name, you can turn off your computer, kick back in your easy chair and reach for a festive sparkling holiday beverage. Ho ho ho!

Gifts for the gadget guru

Sonos digital music system
If your special someone likes to rock out -- and if you're loaded -- you'll really find no better trade for your cash than a Sonos music system. The device isn't new, but the concept is so totally alien to how most of us understand music that it's still mainly the domain of early adopters. The Sonos pipes digital music through your house wirelessly. You set up speakers and Sonos adapters in various rooms -- up to 32 zones around your McMansion -- and play the same song, or many different songs, across the whole pad. You control the tunes with a snazzy wireless remote control that, with its full-color screen and scroll wheel, looks and feels like an iPod. The Sonos grabs music from anywhere you've got it -- on your computers, your network drives, your iPods, free Internet radio stations and, best of all, subscription music services like Napster and Rhapsody. We included Sonos on our last gift guide, but in the past year the company has added a fantastic search feature to the device that renders the thing nearly magical: Now you can type in any song you want, anytime, and it's more than likely to be available for your immediate gratification. Have a sudden hankering for Hanson's "MMMBop" or 'Til Tuesday's "Voices Carry"? No longer will desires go unfulfilled.

You can buy a Sonos two-room bundle, with remote, for $999; $1,149 with an included set of two 75-watt speakers. Setting up additional rooms will set you back at least $349 each. Sonos comes with 30-day trials to many major music subscription services; they typically run about $10 a month, and you should get at least one to make the system sing. Check out the Sonos online store for more.

Roomba 500
If you think getting a robot to clean your floors is kind of lazy, I fully agree -- and by the way, could you please stop by my house with your broom? In the summer iRobot released substantially improved models of its popular Roomba robot cleaner, and they're so good they make being lazy OK. The new Roomba 500 vacuums work the same way as the old Roombas: You press start and watch it go, rolling around your pad in a curious zigzag dance in search of dirt. But the latest model packs more sucking power than previous versions, and it's more nimble -- it'll climb up on rigs, navigate speaker and TV wires, and manage never to get stuck under the bed.

The base model, the Roomba 530, costs $299; the Roomba 560, which includes a scheduler and "lighthouses" that guide the robot to other rooms (not very neccessary, I found in my review), is priced at $349; and the Roomba 570, which adds a wireless remote controller to the system, is $399. Get them at iRobot's online store.

iPod touch
Don't buy an iPhone this holiday season. As wonderful as it is, it still lacks fast 3G wireless Internet capabilities, and since the smart money says Apple will add that feature soon, you're best off waiting till you can get it (without 3G, the iPhone's mobile Web access is painfully slow). What you should take a look at instead is Apple's iPod touch. It's like the iPhone without the phone -- actually, it is the iPhone without the phone. The touch has many of the phone's best features -- Wi-Fi networking, the Safari Web browser, Apple's wireless music store, and of course a fantastic music and video player and a stunning wide screen with which to play them. At the same time, it does away with AT&T, the worst thing about its big brother the iPhone. You can't get the anywhere-Internet access on the iPod touch -- but you can access the Web anywhere there's a Wi-Fi network, which for many people is probably good enough. Then next year, get an iPhone.

The iPod touch is $299 for the 8 GB version and $399 for the 16 GB version, available at Apple's online store.

Boston Acoustics Receptor clock radio
A $100 clock radio? What does it do, brew coffee? Nope. But it does offer very good radio reception. Get this for the NPR fan in your life, the loved one whose trysts with "Morning Edition" are inevitably loused up by static. The radio (which actually costs $98.36 on Amazon) has 20 presets, very nice sound quality, a large digital display and a classic look. Your public radio-addled friends will thank you for it.

-- Farhad Manjoo

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