Is your family struggling to find you that perfect present? Well, they don’t need to break the bank to splurge on you! Read this article below for a few casual hints you can send their way.
originally posted by: www.consumerreports.org
After everything your mother has given you over the years, you’d like to give her the world this Mother’s Day. But she probably also taught you not to spend more than you can afford. We’re here to help.
Here are five fantastic Mother’s Day gifts she’ll love. These suggestions are recommended by our testers, offer great value, and rank high in our ratings.
Headphones
If Mom is still using the earphone set that came with her smartphone, she’ll love the audio upgrade that new headphones provide. A variety of models is available now, from small, in-ear buds that provide maximum portability to over-the-ear versions with killer sound.
Recommendations
Noise-Canceling Headphones: Bose Quiet Comfort 25, $300
These noise-canceling, over-ear headphones have a detachable audio player, a built-in mic, answer/player control, and volume buttons for iPad and smartphone use. It also comes with an airplane adapter and its own carrying case. The newest version of this model offers excellent sound quality, and it works with the noise-canceling feature on or off.
Stereo Headphones: 1More E1001 Triple Driver, $100
Find just the right fit by selecting from the nine ear pieces of different sizes and shapes that come with these headphones. This is a great choice for commuters thanks to an isolating design that allows these headphones to both muffle some external noise and curb the sound coming out.
Kitchen Knife Set
Although a great knife set make a great gift for anyone, Mom will love it if she also likes to cook. Just make sure that her kitchen is stocked with a number of different kinds of knives. A well-equipped home kitchen should have at least four types of kitchen knives: a chef’s knife, a slicer, a utility knife, and a parer.
Recommendation
Ginsu Chikara Kitchen Knife, $89-$156
The Ginsu eight-piece set offers incredible value, providing the cutting performance and handle comfort of knives costing three and four times as much. It’s a great set and includes a chef’s and santoku knife but not a slicer. So you’ll have to buy that one separately.
Tablet Computer
If mom’s still lugging around a laptop, a tablet could be a great Mother’s Day gift. Tablets with 8-inch or smaller displays mostly weigh well under a pound. Many are very thin. Some tablets in this size range have a battery life of 15 hours or longer. You can get a great 7- to 8-inch tablet starting at less than $200. Even normally high-priced Apple is offering a less expensive model, the iPad Mini, for $250. Tablets with larger display sizes cost more, of course. But very good 10-inch tablets are out there for about $350.
Recommendation
Asus ZenPad S 8.0 Z580C-B1 (32GB) Tablet, $210
The display quality on this tablet is excellent. Colors were among the most realistic and natural-looking we’ve seen. The screen was brighter than on most tablets, and readability in daylight was also very good. In addition to that, the Asus ZenPad is very slim and compact for its screen size, and at 0.67 pounds it’s also very lightweight.
Coffee Maker
For some moms the day can’t start until after the first cup of Joe, so a quality coffee maker would make a great Mother’s Day gift. While you may want to splurge on a few features such as programmability or a thermal carafe, you can skip all the bells and whistles on most pricey models and still get a consistently good morning mugful.
Recommendations
Drip Coffee Maker: Cuisinart PerfecTemp DCC-322, $82-$100
This model offers automatic shutoff, a permanent filter, and a water filter. It also features an indicator that lets you know when it’s time for a cleaning. It was fairly simple to set up, use, and clean, and did not overflow even when we brewed a full pot.
Single-Serve Coffee Maker: DeLonghi Nescafe Dolce Gusto Genio, $130
Our testers loved that they didn’t have to wait long for the machine to warm up before it delivered its first cup (or subsequent ones). It also maintained temperature and size consistency across multiple cups.
Specialty Coffee Maker: iCoffee RCB100-BC12 coffee maker, $100
Although this machine looks like a drip coffee maker, it makes coffee more like a French press, with hot-water jets in its basket spritzing and circulating the grounds before filling the carafe.
Wireless Speakers
For the mom who has everything, indulge her with something she might not buy for herself: a wireless speaker. A wireless speaker makes a great Mother’s Day Gift and lets Mom play music stored on a phone, tablet, media player, or computer that’s across the room or even elsewhere in the house. Most models use Bluetooth wireless technology, which works with a wide range of mobile devices, including the Apple iPhone and Android smartphones.
Recommendation
Libratone Zipp Mini Wireless Speaker, $202
It’s easy to spot this portable speaker from Libratone because it stands upright and has a colorful CoolWeave mesh fabric covering (available in four colors: green, red, gray, and dark gray). This WiFi and Bluetooth speaker also has a unique cylindrical shape, which delivers good sound quality, making it a good choice as a home wireless stereo speaker for music and movie or TV soundtrack reproduction. It’s easy to use, and unlike many portable (Bluetooth) models, it can be combined with additional AirPlay- or DLNA-compatible speakers to become part of a multiroom wireless home sound system.
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