Hi All,

I thought it would be cool to start a thread on here that had recommendations for gifts - I hope to use this thread to find inspirations for gift ideas in the future. Going to Amazon and buying a generic gift is just not the best way to shop. There's some cool stuff out here in web-land, let's create a thread to highlight some of the better ones!

My present struggle is to find a gift for my neice who is turning 10 next week.

Here's a recommendation for someone > 18 or so... http://www.adagio.com/ I'm not TOTALLY impressed with their customer service, but they do put out a good product for a good price.

Any help on my neice gift?

- Thanx
- Jon

Along those lines, I got my fiancee this coffee maker for Christmas (upon recommendation by this board, by the way), and she's very happy with it. The only problem she's had was when her mother used it once, and accidentally threw away the permanent filter IMO, I can't see buying one of those Senseo things, when you can get this one for $18 and brew any type of coffee you want.

A little higher on the price spectrum of gifts for my SO, her parents and I pitched in and got her an Archos GMini400. She really likes it. This is before the iPod w/video came out, but I still think it holds up well, since it can do a hell of a lot more than the iPod can, especially if you get the GMini402cc with the built in basic camera/camcorder. Anyway, it's a hit with her, and I love that my fiancee is a big fan of philosophy behind mass storage devices

In the same general price category as an iPod, there are a variety of digital cameras on the market, getting cheaper every day. $100 now gets you a bargain model. $150 gets you 5MP and a 3x zoom lens. $200 gets you 6MP and image stabilization or WiFi or other random features. $250 gets you smaller form factors, bigger screens, or more megapixels. Last Christmas, it looked like $250 was the sweet spot, but now you can get everything you could realistically need for under $200.

Also, prices on cordless phones have fallen through the floor. $100 now gets you a Panasonic 5.8GHz cordless phone system (base station w/ answering machine plus three handsets).

The best gifts, though, are gifts that somebody always knew they wanted but never got around to getting for themselves (or never realized they needed). We got my wife's parents a new digital camera for Christmas. Their old one was a Sony Mavica with the floppy disks, but it worked for them and they didn't want to spend the cash on an upgrade...

Do you know her interests? Is she into clothes, sudoku, gadgets, games, dolls,????

This isn't for a young lady. (I suppose it might depend on the lady) But a truly well made item.

Not sure if these are still in vogue but they were very cool when my little girl ( 21 now) was at that age. http://www.americangirl.com/

I think this may be one of the dolls I bought for my daughter.
http://store.americangirl.com/pls/ag/AG_pagestyle?catid=375955&groupid=424693

The Muppet Show Season One, 4 disc set.

Hmm, I may need to buy this for myself...

Thinking along the lines of nieces, dolls, and cute, with a side order of empeg geek-ness, theres always:

Aibo
Qrio

They're discontinued, so maybe they can be had cheap. As in, only needing to refinance ONE of your homes.