Gift Giving Made Easy With Spire and Icekube
As the holidays approach far more quickly than most of us are ready to deal with it’s time to start thinking about those people on your gift-giving list that are difficult to buy for. We all have a few, that person who likes everything, or nothing, and won’t just tell you what they would like. It’s always nice to have a handful of gift ideas that are universally appealing- things that your niece or nephew would use and enjoy just as much as that co-worker that you barely know who’s name you got in the ‘fun’ secret Santa gift exchange. In an attempt to make shopping for presents easier, we’re happy to present to you a couple of really great universal gift suggestions.
From Spire we offer the Volt backpack, with a Boot for your recipient’s laptop. The Volt comes in two colors, a very nice gray-blue color with black trim, or black on black. This bag is designed to maximize the amount of space available to store and organize your stuff, with features like mesh side pockets, clasps and straps to hold your bag in place while wearing it (and also to hold the straps out of the way when not in use). There are many other really thoughtful features like small spaces for your MP3 player, lined pouches for your sunglasses and ways to keep earphone cords untangled. Much like our beloved Tom Bihn bags Spire is a small company that really focuses on high quality products. All of their bags feature 420D Cordura Velocity fabric, which is both lightweight and water resistant, and big sturdy zippers that keep everything inside nice and dry. The boot laptop holder, which can accommodate anything from a netbook all the way up to a 17-inch laptop, can be moved around into a couple of places inside the bag, and can also be carried on it’s own, via the hand strap and a shoulder strap. The Volt is ideal for any kind of daily use, though the style is better suited to students, and will easily hold everything you might need to take along with you. Look for the Volt, currently on sale, from Spire directly for $119 with the boot, or $89 without.
We have yet to meet a person who doesn’t enjoy music in some capacity, and most people these days have some sort of MP3 player, or digital audio music source of some sort. Plus, anything that utilizes “acoustic vibration technology” is bound to be fun! The Icekube Anywhere Speaker from IceTech makes it possible to turn any ordinary surface into a speaker, even the floor! We found this inductive speaker works best on a wood or glass table, but were successful in turning windows, doors and kitchen counters into speakers with the Icekube. The sound was best at a low to moderate volume though; turning the sound up too much resulted in some unpleasant distortion. It comes with an OK remote control, a nice addition, which made it easy to adjust sound levels without much fuss. The Kube is powered with an A/C adapter, which makes it slightly less portable than if used batteries, but also gives it a bit more juice. The Icekube is sure to please a wide array of people, from gadget lovers to music lovers (though perhaps not audiophiles). Coming in under $100 puts it at a decent price-point, definitely worth considering when you’re stuck for gift-giving ideas for the guy or gal with everything. You can find the Icekube on Amazon or directly through Ice Tech for around $89.
