Byte by Bite

Christmas Special

by Marv Dealy

Summary first – I’ve got just what you want if you just are looking for a website where you can find a lot of reviews of stuff by category, such as computers, cell phones, smart phones, PDAs, automobile tech, games and gaming stuff, home audio and video, cameras and camcorders, MP3 and portable video players, and of course TVs.

It’s from the folks at CNET.com, and you’ll be able to read reviews, comparisons, and shop by price category for any of the above, and more. Find all the reviews you could hope for at Reviews.Cnet.com

I decided we need a little personalized input to the list found at the Cnet website, and I began by asking around the office first. And I found what all gamers apparently need—a Sony PlayStation 3. But good luck finding one. They’re supposed to be released November 17 and retailers will supposedly be selling these for $500 and up, depending on the amount of hard drive space. I just found one on eBay for $2295, indicating the product may be scarce on store shelves.

Not that much money to spend on your gamer? You might choose an Xbox 360, about $400 at major electronic retailers. Along with the Xbox 360, I’m told you’ll want Halo 3, Gears of War, Call of Duty 3, and Rainbow 6: Vegas. The games run about $60 each.

No serious gamer can get by for long without a computer from Alienware, with a case scarey enough for Halloween and the ability to store some 609,400 songs or 407 games or 610 movies with 2.5 Terabytes of storage. Our gamer recommends the Area-51 starting at $6,589.

For quite a bit less you can boost the graphics in your computer with the newest graphics cards from Nvidia, the GeForce 8800 GTX, with DirecX 10 support and SLI technology that enables you to combine multiple graphics cards in one system. Pick up two of these cards for under $1,500 at TigerDirect.com

While you’re swapping the video cards you might want to ad an Intel Core 2 Extreme X6800 2.93GHz processor, at about $950 from Newegg.com and don’t forget the Tarantula keyboard from Razer, the “first definitive keyboard created for gamers by gamers” according to their website (Razerzone.com) and a relative bargain at just $130.

Once your gamer gets all their new toys up and running, they’ll need some way to call their friends to brag, and what better than an LG Chocolate? Part MP3 player, part phone, and part digital camera and Bluetooth capable, the Chocolate starts at $130 at VerizonWireless.com

We talked about a few games for an Xbox 360, but you’ll also need to find some games for your gamer’s PC—think Halo 2 Vista, Assassin’s Creed, Quakewars, Half-Life2: Episode Two, and World of Warcraft: Burning Crusade, around $50 each.

Your gamer might want an actual camera to take pictures of all the toys, and what better than a Canon PowerShot A630, starting at about $235 online at a variety of places. The camera is a great choice for point-and-shoot photographers, and offers 8MP sensors, 4x optical zoom and a rotating 2.5 in LCD screen.

Eventually, even a gamer just wants to watch a movie, and for that what you’ll really want is a Samsung PPM42M5S 42” plasma display, just $1499 from Amazon.com

Last but not least, get your gamer out of the house and playing in the great outdoors with a 2007 Jeep Wrangler Rubicon, starting at MSRP of just $26,750.

Great, but what about the non-gaming Gen Yer? The new iPod shuffle digital music player should be in stores now, and at $79 this wearable iPod—only a half cubic inch in size—can store up to 240 songs that can be downloaded from your Mac or your PC

You might want to consider upping the ante for the iPod shuffle earbuds, and step up to the “Rolls-Royce of earbud headphones,” (according to Cnet.com) the UE-10 Pro. Each pair is custom made to fit just your ears and will set you back $900.

A different approach to gifting comes from the JukeBox Station, a really big dock for your iPod that looks like a retro jukebox, has 80 watts of power, and 5 speakers plus a subwoofer—at $599 it’s a bargain from Target.com and it plays your CDs and AM/FM as well.

For the Apple lover expecting a new laptop, pick up a box that says “MacBook” on the outside, and your beloved will get a dynamite laptop barely an inch thick that boasts the Intel Core 2 Duo processor and runs Windows and Windows programs, as well.

MacBook’s start at $1099 at Store.Apple.com and MacBook Pros start at $1999 at the same web address. If you’re looking to fully pimp your MacBook, set it up for Windows operation as well. Add $700 for XP Pro, and Microsoft Office 2003 Professional Edition—Full Version; Boot Camp (from Apple) is free and you’ll need it to partition the hard drive and make part of it a Windows machine. Naturally, games and Internet security software and PC maintenance software will be extra.

And for the last item, I’ve saved the best—a USB thumb drive from Cartier, the jewelry and watch people. Covered in brushed palladium (a relative of platinum) and engraved with the Cartier name, you can carry around 1GB worth of your stuff for a mere $580 and face it, it’s probably the cheapest thing at Cartier.