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SALTZMAN: For dads or grads, these new gadgets make for great gifts

Dads can be tough to buy for.

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You don’t want to pick something out they might not wear, yet a gift card is predictable and impersonal.

Graduating students can be even trickier gift recipients. You really don’t want them to roll their eyes, do you?

Perhaps you’ll consider a high-tech toy.

Granted, a gadget gift costs more than a set of golf balls or quirky socks, but perhaps the family can go in on something for Father’s Day or a graduation gift.

And hey, aren’t they worth it?

So, the following are a handful of suggestions, divided into the type of dad pr grad you’re buying for.

FOR AVID READERS

The first colour Kobo e-ink readers are here.

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Rakuten Kobo’s 6-inch Clara Colour ($179) or the 7-inch Libra Colour ($249) let you read books and magazines in colour, and highlight passages like you could a paperback or textbook – but it still features everything else you’d want in an eReader.

This includes the ability to read outside, even in bright sunlight (or in bed, with its integrated backlight); it’s waterproof (to bring to the beach, pool, or in a bubble bath); and can store several thousand books from the Kobo Bookstore or borrowed from your local library (there’s 16GB of storage on the Clara Colour or twice as much with the Libra Colour). There’s even support for audiobooks via Bluetooth headphones.

Battery life tops six weeks for both picks.

The Kobo Libra Colour also supports Kobo’s stylus pen for notetaking, journal entries, annotations, a daily planner and more.

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Fitbit Sense 2 Smartwatch with Heart Rate Monitor.
Fitbit Sense 2 Smartwatch with Heart Rate Monitor. Photo by Supplied

FOR FITNESS TYPES

It’s all in the wrist.

The Fitbit Sense 2 Smartwatch with Heart Rate Monitor is an activity tracker that can accurately capture your workouts – and display information on the colour touchscreen or companion app on a smartphone – but it can also help keep tabs on other key health metrics, like heart rate, stress management and quality of sleep.

On sale for $299 (down from $329) as part of BestBuy.ca’s Father’s Day Gift Guide, this wearable and water-resistant gadget also gives guided breathing exercises and meditation to reach your daily mindfulness goals – especially after a tough day at the office.

Built-in GPS can calculate pace and distance on your jogs, runs and hikes – even without your phone – and delivers up to six days of battery life on a single charge.

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Receive real-time notifications for calls and texts, as well as take Bluetooth calls hands-free.

HP Envy x360 2-in-1 laptop and a touchscreen tablet.
HP Envy x360 2-in-1 laptop and a touchscreen tablet. Photo by Supplied

FOR THOSE WHO WORK AND PLAY

A versatile device for dads and grads, the HP Envy x360 2-in-1 (from $1,399) serves as both a laptop and a touchscreen tablet.

That is, leverage the integrated keyboard and trackpad to toil away during your 9-to-5 work life, but for your 5-to-9 downtime, bend back the 14-inch (or 16-inch) 4K screen on its 360-degree hinge to pinch and swipe through games, videos, podcasts and more.

Along with its 16:10 screen ratio display, Intel Core processor and AI-infused features, there are several privacy safeguards baked in, including a webcam shutter, microphone mute button and fingerprint reader.

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Another twist on a “2-in-1” device, the Epson EpiqVision Flex Smart Streaming Portable Projector ($715) is just as ideal in the boardroom as it is in the family room.

Delivering a Full HD picture up to 300 inches – that’s four times larger than a 75-inch TV – this compact projector rocks 3,000 lumens of brightness, which means it’s fine in well-lit rooms, whether it’s for PowerPoint sales reports at the office or when brought home for gaming, sports, TV shows and movies with family or friends.

Along with a built-in (surprisingly good) speaker and Bluetooth support (to wirelessly pair with external speakers), built-in Android TV lets you sign into your favourite streaming services, and use your voice to control it all, via the Google Assistant.

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SanDisk’s external hard disk drives offer massive amounts of storage space.
SanDisk’s external hard disk drives offer massive amounts of storage space. Photo by Supplied

FOR CONTENT CREATORS

External hard disk drives (HDDs) are great because they can store massive amounts of data for safekeeping. But solid-state drives (SSDs) are considerably faster, smaller and lighter, and more durable since there aren’t any moving parts.

SanDisk is now offering a “best of both worlds” solution called Desk Drive Desktop SSD, fusing huge capacity (up to 8TB, or about 8,000 gigabytes) with zippy read speeds of up to 1 gigabytes per second. In plain English, you can keep this high-capacity drive connected to your laptop or desktop (or USB-C-based smartphone or tablet) and quickly pull content off the drive – even huge files.

As such, it’s perfect for content creators who need to ingest and edit large photo, video or music files.

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About the size of two hockey pucks stacked together, you can also download free Acronis True Image for Western Digital backup software to make backups automatically.

Prices start at $519 (for 4TB), but the company sells 1TB SSDs for as low as $99 if you don’t need as much storage.

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The Landroid Vision WR208 from Worx is an autonomous mower that doesn’t require any boundary wires or lawn mapping.
The Landroid Vision WR208 from Worx is an autonomous mower that doesn’t require any boundary wires or lawn mapping. Photo by Supplied

FOR PROUD SUBURBANITES

Take a walk around your neighbourhood and you might notice autonomous lawnmowers quietly cutting grass on their own.

While becoming trendy, most require a professionally-installed “boundary wire” to bury just under your grass, in order to keep the robot on its property.

However, the latest model – the Landroid Vision WR208 ($2,199) from Worx – doesn’t require any boundary wires or lawn mapping, which allows for a quick and easy set up, and execution. Instead, it uses sophisticated and safe AI-powered technology to “see” and learn your lawn, automatically identifying the grassy areas it’s meant to cut while avoiding obstacles.

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Since it’s electric, it’s quiet enough to cut at night and won’t bother the neighbours. Like other ‘bots, the WR208 leaves the clippings on top of the lawn to act as fertilizer, instead of collecting the cut grass in a bag that needs to be disposed of.

When it realizes it’s running low on battery, it navigates itself back to the charging base.

LG's 65-inch OLED evo C4 TV is as good as it gets.

FOR HOME THEATRE ENTHUSIASTS

Budget permitting, if it’s time to replace the family’s aging television with a top-of-the-line model, LG’s 65-inch OLED evo C4 TV ($3,299) is as good as it gets, with more than 8.3 million self-lit pixels to produce gorgeous images with incredible contrast, colour and brightness.

Under the hood, the Alpha 9 AI Processor Gen7 serves the power behind panel, including the ability to “upscale” inferior-looking video, plus there’s support for Dolby Vision. The Smart TV platform lets you sign into your favourite streaming services but also includes more than 100 free LG channels of sports, cooking, fitness and more.

Gamers will appreciate the 144Hz refresh rate and 0.1 millisecond response times while playing heated multiplayer matches, including support for NVIDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium.

Along with support for Dolby Atmos audio, an optional but matching LG SC9S Sound Bar ($999) has a bracket that fits under the OLED evo C4 TV, which can be mounted together on a wall.

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