I always have a hard time coming up with a Christmas list to give to friends and family. That’s partially because there isn’t too much I actually want at any given time and partially because I buy most things I want throughout the year.
If you’re anything like me, you’ve been looking for some ideas of what to put on your wishlist. And aside from the obvious suggestion — Initial Charge merch — I have a handful of others that I’d like to share.
A Compact USB Charger
I have a bit of an obsession with USB chargers. There just seems to always be a new one that’s slightly smaller and with more power output than the ones I currently have.
I’m a massive fan of Anker’s USB chargers and I have a couple on my wishlist this year:
Anker 715 Charger (Nano II 65W) — it offers a single USB-C port that can provide up to 65W of power. It has foldable plugs and is significantly more compact than what you’ll get from just about any device maker. I have their slightly smaller 30W version, but with my recently acquired Framework laptop, I want something that offers more power output.
Anker 523 Charger (Nano 3, 47W) — a two-port USB-C charger that can output 45W when charging a single device or 47W when using both ports. I have the 40W version of this and absolutely love it, but the plugs on that one aren’t foldable and it obviously outputs less power.
A Great Game Controller
Video games are fun. And if you want to play video games, you should get yourself a proper controller. I own a bunch, but there are two that I recommend to everyone that asks.
Backbone One — one of those fancy retractable controllers that you slap on your phone to turn it into a handheld console. I have a few others like it, but always end up coming back to the Backbone. It’s comfortable to use, is available in a slick PlayStation variant, and they offer a carrying case. My only wish is for them to swap the d-pad and analog stick on the PlayStation Edition to match Sony’s controllers.
8BitDo Pro 2 — sometimes you just want to sit back on the couch and play a little Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 in RetroArch on your Apple TV. But if you want to make that happen, you’re going to need a Bluetooth controller. This one from 8BitDo is what you should get.
A Nostalgic Camera
I had a realization recently that I’m just not taking enough photos. How do I fix that? With a new hobby, of course. This year I’ve added the Kodak Ektar H35N to my Christmas list. It’s a super cool half frame film camera. It uses standard 35mm film, but each photo only takes up half the frame of a normal 35mm camera. This means you can get twice as many photos per roll.
I don’t expect the photos that I take with this camera to be as crisp as what I get with my iPhone, but that’s not the point. I’ll get to toy around with a nifty little gadget, explore the world of film stock, teach my kids about film photography, and capture memories along the way with a retro style.
An Excellent Wireless Charger
Who has time to connect cables to their devices to charge them? It’s so much easier to slowly slide your phone around while watching an LED, waiting for it to illuminate, indicating that you’ve found the sweet spot on your wireless charger.
You still have that experience with the Nomad Base Station, but it does feature magnets to help align iPhones with MagSafe. And you don’t have to mess about with USB cables that fall behind your nightstand because you bumped the alarm clock that was holding it in place.
The Nomad Base Station has three wireless charging coils on top and two USB ports on the rear — one A and one C — which you can use to top-off devices that don’t have wireless charging support.
And if you’re the kind of guy that has an Apple Watch. Nomad has an Apple Watch Edition of the Base Station that includes an integrated Apple Watch charger.
A Retro Gaming Handheld
Maybe you don’t want to use your phone as a handheld console. Perhaps because you’re tight on storage and just don’t have the room for all those rom files. Or maybe you feel too restricted by Apple’s asinine rules around JIT and emulators in the App Store.
If you have an iPhone and want to emulate systems beyond the PSP and PlayStation, you’ll probably start looking at dedicated gaming handhelds. I’ve been a fan of Retroid’s offerings for a couple of years and if I was buying one today, I’d end up with either the Retroid Pocket Mini or the Retroid Pocket 5.
These two devices offer nearly identical performance — although, the Retroid Pocket 5 has a bit more memory. The largest differences are the display and the physical size of the unit.
The Retroid Pocket Mini has a 3.7-inch display with a 4:3 aspect ratio and is, as the name implies, smaller than the Retroid Pocket 5. The larger of the two has a 5.5-inch display with a 16:9 aspect ratio.
I think I would lean toward the Retroid Pocket Mini. If only because the vast majority of games I want to play are from the GameCube and PlayStation 2 era where a 4:3 display would be more fitting. But I could see myself settling on the Retroid Pocket 5 since the price difference is negligible — only $20 — and the larger display could come in handy if I wanted to use it for watching video or on the off-chance I end up playing more modern games on it.
A Dedicated Music Player
The iPod Click Wheel Games Preservation Project has had the iPod on my mind a lot more lately. Phase is one of the best games of all time and that’s not a joke. As far as rhythm games go, there’s not another one that has brought me as much joy as Phase has. The ability to play with music from your own library is dope.
I have a few iPods, all purchased from Elite Obsolete Electronics. And unless you have a specific model that you’re nostalgic for, I’d recommend either the third generation iPod nano because of it’s minuscule size or the fifth generation iPod because of it’s impressive feature set and the ability to modify it for additional storage and battery capacity.
You get yourself one of these, install some Click Wheel games (Phase, seriously), setup a virtual machine to install an old version of iTunes, and sync over some music. You won’t regret it.
