Fathers’ Day Gift Guide

It’s that time of the year: time to think about what to buy for your dad.

Here’s a few ideas, pulled from the various gadgets that we get to look at throughout the year.

Does dad drive? Does he have a mobile phone? The Jabra Drive is an inexpensive hands free speakerphone that connects to his mobile phone using bluetooth. Remember that it’s illegal to hold your phone while your in charge of a motor vehicle, and heavy fines and a loss of demerit points may ensue if you’re caught. For less than $60, you’ll not only be helping your dad to obey the law, but you’ll also be helping him to enjoy his motoring in greater safety.

For the coffee-aholic dad in your family, how about the Nespresso Pixie? This is a compact, one touch coffee machine, that can make your cup of coffee in less than a minute. It’s a truly fuss free, mess free way of getting your hit of coffee, at any time of the day.

If dad already has a cappuccino machine, or if you think that the Pixie isn’t quite enough, perhaps the Nespresso Aeroccino milk frother might be a nice idea? Inexpensive, it’s a simple and elegant way of frothing up your milk for that perfect latte or cappuccino.

Maybe dad fancies himself as a bit of a shutterbug? Be sure to check out the Olympus Pen EP-3. This is a camera that’s small, but not too small. At the basic level it offers the advantages of interchangeable lenses and a relatively large sensor size, which means that your image quality will benefit as a result. but ease of use is a big feature here as well: it sports a touch screen interface, that lets you see, on the screen, the image that you’re going to capture. Touch the screen in the area where you want the image to be focused, and the camera will automatically focus at that location, and then take the photo for you. How cool is that?

Does dad need a new mobile phone? If your dad’s well into social networking and Facebook, maybe something like HTC’s Cha Cha or Salsa might be of interest? These are both very nicely featured smartphones running under the Android operating system, but specially developed for allowing the owner to interact with Facebook.

If they’re beyond your budget, maybe take a look at Huawei’s Sonic or Ideos X1 – perfectly inexpensive smartphones that are also running under the Android operating system, but very keenly priced.