The Ars Holiday Gift Guide 2018—tech and gear for travel that we’d buy

The holiday season is fast approaching, which means it’s once again time for the world to come together in a spirited embrace of consumerism. Or, perhaps in a more cheerful alternative, it’s time to again think about what gifts your loved ones might like. Thankfully, your friends at Ars are back with recommendations that won’t disappoint, since they’re based on months of testing and toying with the many things that have hit our desks around the Orbiting HQ.

Today, Ars has put together the first in a series of holiday gift guides we’ll roll out in the coming weeks. For 2018, we’re covering everything from board games to office gifts to things for the fellow Ars reader (or at least Ars reader type) in your life. But with holiday travel planning already in full swing, we’re starting with portable gear: gift ideas for things you can easily carry on your person and take on the go if need be. Here’s hoping something below can serve your loved ones well on their next road trip.

Note: Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

OnePlus 6T

The OnePlus 6T and its in-display fingerprint reader.

Credit: Ron Amadeo

There’s no one Android phone that got everything right this year, but the OnePlus 6T does most of what we want from a modern high-end phone at a significantly lower price than many of its peers. That makes it our Android flagship of choice at the moment.

The typical refrain with OnePlus phones is that they aren’t quite as high-quality as the $800-1,000 phones from Apple, Samsung, or Google. But they aren’t terribly far off, and that’s good enough when they cost a couple hundred dollars less. With the OnePlus 6T, this still holds true in some ways: its all-glass design is fragile yet doesn’t support wireless charging, it doesn’t have a headphone jack, and its camera, while certainly good, isn’t quite as revealing as the camera on the Google Pixel 3 (particularly in low-light settings).

Elsewhere, though, the 6T sees OnePlus not just matching its competitors but surpassing them in meaningful ways. If we must have notched displays, the 6T’s minimal “teardrop” design seems like the least obtrusive way to go. Its futuristic in-display fingerprint reader is unique (for now) and works well—not as fast as the usual physical scanners but strong enough to justify the screen space it saves. The rest of the hardware is just as fast and powerful as any other premium Android phone.

The phone ships with the latest Android 9 Pie, and OnePlus remains one of the few manufacturers that doesn’t unnecessarily tinker with every part of the OS. The few additions it does add, like an iOS-esque set of gesture controls, actually improve on Google’s stock software. OnePlus is also promising two years of software updates and three years of security patches (albeit on a bi-monthly basis), which should provide some reassurance.

Perhaps most notably, this phone is actually available through a carrier in the US. You’ll need to use T-Mobile, but if you’d prefer to pay off the phone in installments, it’s now easier to do that. The 6T starts at $549: unless you just can’t quit Google or the headphone jack, there’s little reason to pay more for a new Android phone.

Apple iPhone 7

The Apple iPhone 7.

Credit: Jeff Dunn

Giving buying advice for the latest crop of iPhones is pretty straightforward: buy the iPhone XS if you want the best (i.e., OLED) display and money is no object; buy the iPhone XS Max if you want a bigger XS; or buy the iPhone XR if you want a new model but think shelling out $1,000 for a phone is ridiculous.

Where things get trickier is if you want the iPhone experience without paying a flagship price. The diminutive iPhone SE used to fill that void, but it now rests in Apple’s graveyard alongside floppy disks, headphone jacks, and keyboards everyone likes. You could get the year-old iPhone 8, which still performs admirably, but that costs $600—unless you truly hate that polarizing notch and the lack of a Home button on newer models, it’s worth finding the extra $150 for the iPhone XR.

Instead, the best iPhone deal in 2018 is the iPhone 7. It’s two years old and starts at $449 for the 4.7-inch model with 32GB of storage. While it’s not outright cheap, it’s still as affordable as an Apple device gets. There’s no wireless charging, no headphone jack, and it’s an obvious step down from the camera, processor, and battery performance of the iPhone XS—but that still leaves plenty of room for a good phone. Photo quality remains above-average for a sub-$500 phone, there’s the same IP67 water-resistance as the XR, and the chassis continues to look and feel as premium as you’d expect from Apple. The Home button has its conveniences—particularly for Apple Pay—and if you don’t like the notch, it’s not here.

Most importantly, Apple’s newfound commitment to its older phones means the iPhone 7 runs exceptionally well in 2018. The latest iOS 12 update has only made navigating the UI smoother, and it hasn’t had a negative impact on battery life. And the A10 Fusion chip is still fast enough to run virtually any game or app in the App Store without trouble. So while it’s next to impossible to recommend a two-year-old Android phone, the fact that Apple just rolled out iOS 12 to the five-year-old iPhone 5S suggests the iPhone 7 has years of support left.

If you can find a refurbished model directly from Apple, it’s an even better deal. Just make sure you can live with 32GB of storage and headphone dongles first.

Anker Soundcore Flare

Anker’s SoundCore Flare speaker.

Credit: Jeff Dunn

For listening to music with a group—or just without a pair of headphones strapped to your ears—Anker’s Soundcore Flare is as well-rounded as budget Bluetooth speakers get. It’s only about six inches tall, so you can’t expect a huge sound or anything in the way of sub-bass. But Anker includes a “Bass Boost” mode that does sound more dynamic than the default sound signature, even if it doesn’t add much in the way of actual bass depth. Overall, the speaker gets good volume for its size, with relatively clear highs and well-measured low-mids. It’s a pleasing sound for the size.

The audio quality alone makes the Soundcore Flare a good value at $60, but it helps that the hardware itself is IP67 water-resistant—i.e., it can be fully submerged in a meter of water for 30 minutes and still work fine. The bellbottom-like flair at the bottom of the speaker is a little odd, but the fabric coating the cylinder is nice and soft. On top is a set of playback controls that are simple to grasp. The Flare charges over microUSB instead of USB-C, sadly, but there is an aux-in port for those who’d rather connect a device through a cable. Battery life is fine, too, getting around 10-12 hours depending on how loudly you play things.

On the bottom, meanwhile, is a transparent plastic halo that houses a set of colorful LED lights. Keep those on and they’ll pulsate and react to whatever music you play. This isn’t anything more than a fun party trick—and the LED activity is somewhat overactive by default—but with a few setting tweaks in the speaker’s companion app, it’s like having a little Philips Hue bulb attached to your speaker. Add it all up, and the Soundcore Flare is a fun party speaker at an attractive price point.

Sony WH-1000XM3

Sony’s WH-1000XM3 noise-cancelling headphones.

Credit: Jeff Dunn

It took a while, but Sony has finally toppled Bose in the battle to build the best noise-cancelling headphone. With regard to pure noise-cancelling quality, the company’s WH-1000XM3 came out stronger than Bose’s QuietComfort 35 II in testing, though the difference is slight. Like all noise-cancelling cans, neither pair can totally mute higher-pitched voices or mechanical keyboard clacks, but both are remarkably effective at shutting out the rumble of a jet engine or the chatter of a busy New York City intersection. They are superb for travel.

Where the WH-1000XM3 separates itself is in the other fundamentals. My all-black demo unit is not flashy, but it comes off as handsome and professional. More importantly, this set of headphones proves supremely comfortable—both lighter and more breathable around the ears than its predecessors, with a healthy but not overbearing amount of soft pleather padding around the ear cups and headband. It’s not as lightweight as the QuietComfort 35 II, but it’s far from bulky. The headband itself is flexible, the ear cups are neatly foldable, and the suite of touch controls on the device’s side are consistently responsive. While some may want more premium build materials from a $350 headphone, the hard plastic here has proven sturdy enough.

To my ears, the WH-1000XM3 also offers superior audio quality. Everyone’s preferences are different, but the bass of Sony’s default sound signature is fun and rich without going Beats-circa-2010 overboard. These headphones could stand to offer more treble detail, but, all told, this pair offers good balance, width, and clarity. By comparison, the Bose QuietComfort 35 II’s treble feels more present, but the bass isn’t as tight, and the mids are a bit flatter. It’s not a poor sound, but Sony’s is tidier. Plus, if you don’t like the default sound of the WH-1000XM3, Sony lets you customize the EQ through a handy companion app.

Bluetooth connection quality is fine on both pairs, and both can work over a wired connection if need be. But the WH-1000XM3 offers better battery life: closer to 27 to 28 hours at moderately high volumes versus the 22 to 23 hours of the QuietComfort 35 II. Sony’s pair charges over a faster USB-C connector, while Bose’s sticks with the older microUSB. The microphone on the WH-1000XM3 is clearer for phone calls, too.

I only have two major complaints with the WH-1000XM3: they leak sound at moderate-to-high volumes, so those in a quiet office could hear what you’re listening to. Plus, that $350 asking price isn’t cheap. Both of those issues apply to the QuietComfort 35 II as well. If you can afford them, the WH-1000XM3 should serve your loved ones well on their next trip.

ZMI PowerPack 20000

ZMI’s PowerPack 20000.

Credit: Jeff Dunn

As long as our gadgets rely on constantly degrading lithium-ion batteries, a good portable battery pack will remain a worthwhile investment. If you know someone who doesn’t yet own one, the ZMI PowerPack 20000 is a versatile and relatively future-proof choice. It’s not the smallest pack around, coming in at 6.3 inches long, but, since its aluminum frame weighs less than a pound, it should still fit in a backpack or purse without feeling like an anchor. Plus, that size is only due to the fact that it holds a hefty 20,000mAh or so of juice.

The future-proof bit comes from the fact that it supports USB-C Power Delivery (PD), which allows it to charge up to 45W on devices that can handle it. In other words, it can refill certain compatible devices faster than other battery packs. (USB-C PD technically supports up to 100W, but there aren’t many trustworthy packs that go higher than 45W for now.) The battery itself can recharge at up to 45W as well. Beyond the USB-C port, there are two classic USB-A ports that support Qualcomm’s Quick Charge 3.0 standard.

To be clear, today’s smartphones can’t take advantage of this level of power input; the point of the PowerPack 20000 is that it can charge newer mobile devices at their maximum speeds several times over and capably recharge a mainstream laptop like Dell’s XPS 13 or Apple’s 12-inch MacBook. If you only care about keeping a smartphone alive, something like Aukey’s PB-Y13 might make more sense. It’s only a 10,000mAh battery that charges up to 18W, but that’s fast enough for most new phones, and the whole thing only costs $30. But for a battery that can help across the board, the PowerPack 20000 is fast, powerful, and well made.

Yi Dash Cam

The Yi Dash Cam.

Credit: Valentina Palladino

A dash cam isn’t an essential purchase, but the peace of mind it provides in the event of a fender bender can still be comforting. For someone who loves their vehicle, this represents a thoughtful gift.

We like the Yi Dash Cam as an entry-level option here. It lacks GPS, so it can’t stamp videos with your coordinates, but it takes perfectly acceptable video—up to a 1296p resolution at 30 frames per second (or 1080p at 60fps) with a decently wide 165-degree field of view. It’s reasonably compact, with a 2.7-inch LCD display, so it won’t dominate a dashboard. It automatically saves footage before and after a collision, and its companion app helpfully splits up clips by date and makes it easy to download them to a mobile device.

This is a no-frills cam, but for $50, it has what’s important for someone just getting into the market. If you’d prefer something higher-end, meanwhile, Garmin’s Dash Cam 55 takes higher-quality 1440p video and includes GPS and useful voice commands.

Tile Pro

The Tile Pro.

Credit: Tile

Along those same lines, a Bluetooth tracker can provide peace of mind to those who just can’t trust themselves to constantly keep track of their things. Tile has long been the most popular manufacturer of these things, and now that it has embraced replaceable batteries with its new Tile Pro tracker, it’s much easier to recommend than past models.

The $35 Tile Pro uses a basic CR2032 lithium battery, which is widely available for cheap, and Tile says it should last about a year at a time on its own. The rest of the hardware is an upgrade on past Tiles as well: it can stay connected to an iPhone from about 175 to 200 feet away, which is farther than any other Tile we’ve tested, and its built-in alarm is louder as well. The Pro is a bit thicker than other trackers (0.25 inches) and isn’t fully waterproof, but it still doesn’t add a significant amount of bulk to a keychain, and, according to a company spokesperson, is still water-resistant.

Like any other Bluetooth tracker, you use the Tile Pro by attaching the hardware to a keychain, wallet, backpack, or whatever else you want to keep eyes on and connecting the device to the Tile app. That app isn’t immune to occasional lag and wonky moments—particularly on Android—but you can still check the tracked item on a map, ring the tracker or the connected phone remotely, or use the company’s community features to find a device outside of the Pro’s Bluetooth range. To be clear, a Bluetooth tracker like this is more effective at reminding you a backpack is in the car than pinpointing a suitcase you left overseas. But this is where Tile’s (relative) popularity becomes pragmatic: the company’s “Community Find” tool silently pools the locations of other Tile app users and then alerts you if someone passes within the Bluetooth range of your missing tracker. Because Tile has more users, the odds of this feature working are higher.

Unfortunately, Tile locks a few more advanced features behind a premium subscription, including free battery replacements, a 30-day log of your Tile’s location history, and a two-year warranty extension. (By default, the Pro comes with a one-year warranty.) All of that costs $3 a month or $30 a year, but we don’t think it’s necessary for most.

And if it wasn’t obvious by now, everything here requires a certain level of comfort with sharing your location data with a private company. The app needs to consistently run in the background to stay connected to the tracker. And the company’s privacy policy warns that it may use that data with third-party service providers for targeted advertisements, among other things. These are not unique policies for modern tech companies, and the background processes have never had a noticeable effect on our test phones’ performance. But all of this is to say that if you aren’t comfortable with a device that’s so heavily based on location data collection, stay away. If you just want to avoid losing your keys, though, the Tile Pro is the most powerful option in this market.

Fitbit Versa

The Fitbit Versa.

Credit: Valentina Palladino

Fitness trackers are often useful but ugly; smartwatches have a wider app selection but often aren’t as robust with health tracking. The Fitbit Versa tries to split the difference between the two, and it mostly succeeds in doing so.

Fitbit’s app market isn’t varied enough to truly compete with Apple’s watchOS platform, but the Versa is still competent at most Smartwatch Things. It supports a decent chunk of watch faces, it can store music locally (though the file transfer can be slow), it’s water-resistant, it sends notification alerts, and, on Android at least, it lets you reply to texts and messages with quick canned replies. (Only the Apple Watch lets you do the latter with iOS.)

That said, NFC—and thus, contactless payment support—is only available on a pricier Versa model, and a microphone for voice dictation would be useful. Swapping bands on the device is unnecessarily tricky as well. Battery life is a big positive, though: the Versa gets about four days of life per charge, well above the days of charge most people can get out of a new Apple Watch.

Still, the Versa largely makes up for any shortcomings as a smartwatch by also being a high-end Fitbit. It uses a connected GPS instead of a built-in one, but otherwise it tracks sleep, heart rate, female health, and various sports and activities. It does this all fairly well, like any other Fitbit, and the Versa particularly excels when it comes to sleep tracking. All that data is then neatly packaged back in the Fitbit app, which remains flexible enough to help casual users and more involved athletes.

The Versa’s massive bezels keep it from looking as sharp as Apple’s wearables, but, in essence, it puts the functionality of a high-end Fitbit in the hardware of an Apple Watch. If you know a Fitbit user looking to upgrade to a smartwatch or someone looking to get a fitness tracker for the first time, that should be an appealing formula.

Amazon Kindle Paperwhite

Amazon’s new Kindle Paperwhite.

Credit: Valentina Palladino

Amazon recently refreshed the Kindle Paperwhite with a flatter design and an IPX8 waterproof rating. In the process, it took the device from “the best e-reader for most people” to “probably the only e-reader worth considering.”

The Paperwhite doesn’t have the page turning buttons of the $250 Kindle Oasis, and a Kobo reader will always be open to a wider variety of e-book file formats like ePub. A USB-C port would’ve been appreciated, too. But Amazon’s book store is still more than comprehensive enough for most people (healthy markets be damned), and the Paperwhite costs $120 less than the Oasis.

The flatter front on the new Paperwhite makes the device feel surprisingly slimmer, and the 300ppi display is still sharp and well lit. The updated hardware makes page-turning noticeably faster, too. All of this allows the device to just stay out of the way and let users enjoy their reading, at a price that suddenly looks aggressive for the feature set the Paperwhite now offers.

Apple iPad (9.7-inch)

Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad.

Credit: Jeff Dunn

If you’d rather buy a full-fledged tablet instead of an e-reader, Apple’s 9.7-inch iPad is easily the best option for most people. iOS’ superiority on tablets is well known at this point, but the iPad’s hardware is a big part of the device’s value as well. It averaged 11 to 12 hours of battery life per charge in our Wi-Fi browsing test, its A10 Fusion chip is strong enough to power through anything in the App Store, the aluminum finish never feels cheap, and colors on the LCD display are managed well. It also supports Apple’s Pencil stylus, if you know someone in a situation where that’d be useful.

The only big downsides are its lack of waterproofing, the big bezels around the display, and the display’s “air gap,” which makes content onscreen look like it sits below the glass itself. An iPad Pro adds support for Apple’s Smart Connector—which lets it attach the company’s first-party keyboard—and makes significant upgrades to the display’s accuracy and refresh rate. But it costs at least twice as much as the standard iPad, which is just way too much for the media consumption iPads are still best suited for. Unless you have serious money to burn, the standard iPad is the better value and the best buy in tablets today.

The only other casual tablet we could justify is Amazon’s Fire HD 8. It’s worse than the iPad in every meaningful way, but it’s $80, and its eight-inch 1280×800 display and sturdy plastic design are acceptable for that price. Just don’t expect to do anything in the way of work with it, and be prepared to ignore the many nudges toward Amazon content it will show you.

Brydge 9.7 Keyboard for iPad

The Brydge 9.7 Keyboard for iPad

Credit: Jeff Dunn

While the 9.7-inch iPad is primarily geared toward watching videos and browsing the Web, its fast chipset and extensive app library mean it’s still capable of helping with light emailing and word processing work on the go. A good keyboard goes a long way in facilitating that work, though, and Brydge’s 9.7 Keyboard is that.

This is not a keyboard cover, to be clear, just a keyboard. You slide an iPad into a pair of clamps attached to the device, effectively turning the tablet into a miniature laptop. Those clamps can be adjusted if you need to change display angles. It’s not exactly cheap, but the Brydge’s cool aluminum finish feels suitably Apple-like. Its keys, while naturally more cramped than what you’d find on a MacBook, offer more travel and are reasonably comfortable. It gives more feedback than Apple’s own Smart Keyboard.

There are six rows of keys in total, including a helpful set of iOS shortcuts on top, and everything has a built-in backlight. Pairing and unpairing the device over Bluetooth is consistently quick. Brydge rates the keyboard as getting up to 12 months of battery life; we can’t verify that for sure yet, but I haven’t had to charge the device once after six months of use. Sadly, though, it uses microUSB instead of USB-C. But if you can’t use Apple’s Smart Keyboard on your iPad, the Brydge does well to feel like a natural substitute.

HP Spectre 13

HP’s Spectre 13.

Credit: Valentina Palladino

Our review of the new MacBook Air is still in the works, so we’re holding off on a formal Apple laptop recommendation for the time being. The latest 13-inch MacBook Pro is good if you must buy one now, but at $1,799 it’s not a great value.

For a portable Windows ultrabook, we still like the HP Spectre 13. It has the requisite 8th-gen quad-core Intel Core processors, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB SSD, with a 13.3-inch 1080p touchscreen display that can be configured up to a 4K resolution if needed. It performs on par with most other mainstream Windows notebooks—more than smooth enough for Web-based tasks and capable of doing at least some graphics-intensive tasks, albeit with some extra fan noise. Battery life is a plus relative to other Windows laptops, too, getting about 10 hours on our Wi-Fi browsing test and an impressive 5.5 hours on our graphics-based test.

Elsewhere, the design is sturdy and sharp looking, the display gives little to complain about, and the chassis is sufficiently thin (0.4 inches) and light (2.45 pounds). With two Thunderbolt 3 ports and a USB Type-C 3.1 port, everything is up to speed on the connectivity front. The keyboard is comfortable, and the built-in speakers are surprisingly loud. Mercifully, the webcam is located above the display not staring up your nose as it is on the rival XPS 13. At its current price of $1,099, it’s a perfectly fine value for a premium Windows notebook.

That said, it’s not perfect, and you have other quality options, depending on your preferences. The lack of a USB-A port and SD card slot might be a dealbreaker for those who want to connect older accessories without a dongle. Not having a fingerprint reader for faster sign-ins is a bad look at this price, too. The aforementioned XPS 13 may be better if those are necessary, but you’ll have to put up with the asinine webcam placement on that device. Lenovo’s C930 Yoga is another excellent option, but it’s bigger and pricier. It’s also worth noting that an updated Spectre x360 is on the way. If you’re not dead set on a convertible, though, the standard Spectre should satisfy.

Ryze Tello

The Ryze Tello. (Children not included.)

Credit: Ryze Tech

The Ryze Tello is not a drone for aspiring videographers—you’ll have to look to a larger and more expensive DJI drone like the Mavic Air to get someone going down that road. Instead, the Tello is a toy, but it’s one of the few that’s polished enough to get first-time flyers in the hang of using a quadcopter. It’s also affordable enough to not induce a ton of buyer’s remorse if things don’t work out.

The 5-megapixel camera takes usable but predictably grainy shots, and while the drone is technically capable of 720p video, you have to stream that video to your smartphone, which keeps it from coming out super stable. There’s no microSD card slot. The Tello gets about 8 to 10 minutes of flight time, which isn’t the worst for a cheap drone but isn’t anything good. (Ryze sells extra batteries for $19 each.) Ryze wants to sell the Tello on its ability to be flown via MIT’s Scratch programming language, too, but that can be complicated to set up if you’re not familiar with the language already. There’s no return-to-home function, and you’ll have to be careful flying something this small in moderate winds.

Again, it’s a $79 drone—issues are to be expected. Despite them, the Tello is fun to fly and well-built for something this cheap. The whole thing is minuscule (1.6×3.9×3.6 inches) and only 2.8 ounces, so it can be flown indoors. Either way, it can fly up to a fast 20mph once it’s up and running. (A slower speed mode cuts that off to about 7mph for those just starting out.) From there, you can use a paired phone to steer the device and reliably perform various pre-set flips, 360-degree turns, and video capture pans. The Tello can hover in place in between moves, too. It’s nothing remarkable, but it should be enjoyable for a young (supervised) kid or just someone who wants to give drone flying and basic video capture a try before jumping into a pricier model. Just make sure your phone is compatible with the app first.