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Panic! Panic! Panic! That’s the feeling I call “The Santa Scaries,” when I get gifts for almost everyone on my list, but forget one or two presents before stores close on December 24.
For me – and for anyone who thought they were done shopping until they weren’t – The Shortcut is back with recommendations that fall into three categories:
Tech you can buy instantly
Gadgets with easy in-store pickup
Electronics that qualify for overnight shipping
No matter which way you want to secure the bag, we have 50 tech gift ideas so that you don’t land in a 2025 version of “Jingle All The Way.”
Obviously, check with your local store, but we asked each major retailer what time they close today. Ten got back to us with answers ranging from 5pm to 9pm, just to cater to last-minute shoppers.
Walmart is open until 6pm
Best Buy is open until 6pm
GameStop is open until 9pm
Costco is open until 5pm
Macy’s is open until 7pm
Target is open until 8pm
Gap is open until 6pm (with some stores going later)
Old Navy is open until 6pm
Banana Republic is open until 6pm
Ulta is open until 6pm
Need one headset to rule them all? The Astro A20 X Gaming Headset works across every device you own, either via the Lightspeed dongle or Bluetooth. You can switch between PS5, Xbox, PC and Nintendo Switch at the press of a button, and also enjoy crystal clear comms thanks to the 48kHz microphone that uses Blue Vo!ce technology.
Lightweight gaming mice have grown in popularity over the years, and the Logitech G Pro X Superlight 2c is a fantastic choice for those who want a compact-sized mouse that fits their hand size or grip style. It weighs just 51 grams and lasts up to 95 hours from a single charge.
Shameless self plug here! The Shortcut team is headed to CES 2026 and is offering a 20% discount from now until the end of the Las Vegas-based consumer tech show.
Help us report from CES with live human-written content and video updates. You’ll get our expanded subscribe-only perks for all of 2026 with an annual membership.
20% off The Shortcut (get it by CES)
AirTags are the perfect gift for helping everyone keep track of their stuff. It attaches to keys, luggage, wallets, passport holders and more so that you’ll never forget to take these important items with you. Apple AirTags also got a lot better at helping you find your lost luggage – you can share AirTag location information with trusted airlines.
The Samsung SmartTag 2 is essentially the Android-supported version of Apple AirTags (if you have an Android instead of an iPhone, get this one). These Smart Tags also come with a bit of added functionality in that you can use mixed reality through your phone to find your missing stuff. The button on the Samsung SmartTag can also be programmed to trigger a Smart Things home routine for movie nights, bedtime, or any other mood you want to put together.
Logitech G’s wireless gaming keyboard has a super slim design that features ultra-fast, low-profile analog switch technology for new breakthroughs in speed, comfort, and responsiveness, whether you’re typing or gaming.
Logitech G: G515 Rapid TKL keyboard
Best Buy: G515 Rapid TKL Keyboard
If you want the best Nintendo Switch 2 deal, you’re running out of time to grab the Switch 2 Mario Kart World bundle, as the offer is reportedly ending once inventory runs out. Walmart and Best Buy have also knocked $50 off the bundle recently, which means you’re getting Mario Kart World for free instead of $80. Don’t miss this deal, as soon it’ll be gone for good.
Walmart: Switch 2 Mario Kart World
Best Buy: Switch 2 Mario Kart World
The easiest purchase for gamers is to give them access to whatever they want – and to save you money along the way. Eneba sells video game store gift cards with our exclusive code TSC from The Shortcut.
🟦 $100 PlayStation gift card for $89
Use funds for PS5 digital games or your PS+ renewal
Use The Shortcut’s discount code: TSC
*If the code doesn’t work, e-mail or DM me on Substack
You must use my link, as the discount code is tied to that (99% of the time, that’s the problem when people ask)
Use The Shortcut’s discount code: TSC
Use funds for Nintendo Online or digital eShop games
Can’t be used for Nintendo hardware, sorry
❎ $15 off Xbox Game Pass Core for just $25
Use The Shortcut’s discount code: TSC
You can convert these 2:1 to Xbox Game Pass Ultimate
You can stack these (redeem multiple 3-month codes at once)
Use The Shortcut’s code: TSC
Yes, the money can be put toward things like PlayStation Plus and Nintendo Switch Online, not just PS5, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch/Switch 2 digital games.
This Apple-only flight tracking app impressed us with its polished design and ability to predict last-minute flight changes that Delta and others are slow to mention within their own apps. Flighty is the travel app that every airline should strive to mimic, down to the annual year-in-review passport. It costs $3.99 per month or $249 for lifetime access, but it’s worth every penny.
If you fly enough to have status, you should download this app.
Last-minute gift-giving has been made easier thanks to digital games that can be downloaded instantly. Here are some picks from us, to you, to your loved one.
Canva may be new and cool, but we’re still partial to Adobe’s Creative Cloud for its more advanced photo-editing capabilities and leading generative AI toolsets. If you don’t want to spend $60 a month on all the apps, look for the $20/month photography package that bundles Photoshop and Lightroom. We use it daily at The Shortcut.
The $200 PlayStation Portal is easily the most affordable gaming portable on the market now. This 8-inch gaming portable lets you stream PlayStation games from your PS5 or directly through the cloud. That last bit is important as the PlayStation Portal lets anyone play PS5 games even without having to connect to the console. It’s the best PlayStation portable solution until an eventual Sony PSP 2 release date.
If you’re looking to get into sim racing, the Logitech G RS50 System should be on Christmas list. It features a powerful Direct Drive motor with up to 8 Nm of torque, Trueforce support, and integrated quick release. It also includes the RS50 Base, Wheel Hub, and Round Wheel, so you have almost everything you need to hit the racetrack.
This is my favorite travel tripod for on-the-go mobile recording. It has a MagSafe head, so you can instantly pop on any modern iPhone, the Google Pixel 10 series, or any phone with a magnetized case. No need to tighten or screw in your camera.
This travel-friendly tripod can extend to 66 inches (that’s 5.5ft), so it’ll match the eyeline of most people in group photos, and it’s super lightweight at about 0.9 lbs. My favorite part is that it fits in my Peak Design sling bag for easy storage.
This handy Mac tool is a staple in The Shortcut office, allowing you to capture your screen, annotate things, scroll to capture webpages, copy text from images, and more. No more need to fuss around with the default screenshot tool on macOS.
The best testimonial we can give any product: our entire team uses CleanShot X, and it just makes our lives easier.
Also $200, ModRetro’s Nintendo Game Boy retro console plays all of your old Game Boy and Game Boy Color cartridges on a pixel-accurate LCD. We only wish it existed in the 90s when we were kids. The best part is that the screen is backlit, so it works in sunlit conditions. The official ModRetro site is sold out of Chromatic first editions, but you can still buy it at GameStop. Other colors are available from the ModRetro store, and you can choose between a Gorilla Glass or a Sapphire Glass display.
Life doesn’t happen on a flat plane, which is why I’ve been using the handy Insta360 X5 to capture 360º videos that I can reframe later. Carrying this compact, waterproof camera in 2025 has allowed me to worry less about composition and live in the moment.
Order it for pick-up from Best Buy
The Meta Quest 3S is a $300 standalone virtual reality headset I wish I were getting this holiday. It features the Meta Quest 3’s upgraded processor, touch controllers, and tracking technology, despite costing less. You can also experience the same mixed reality experiences on this headset thanks to its integrated camera system. With new VR experiences like Batman: Arkham Shadow and Alien: Rogue Incursion, there are more reasons to get a VR headset than ever before.
Whether you go with Gen 1 (for its discounted price) or Gen 2 (for its 3K camera and extra battery life), the Ray-Ban Meta Glasses are the coolest gift of 2025. They take the iconic Ray-Ban frames to the next level with integrated tech.
This pair of eyeglasses or sunglasses features a camera (ideal for POV shots), microphone, speaker, and onboard Meta AI. You can talk to the glasses to get search results without having to pick up a phone or record truly first-person video with them.
Amazon: RayBan Meta Smart Glasses
Smart rings are all the new craze in the tech world, and the Oura Ring 4 is the best solution for iPhone users. It has all the sensors to track heart rate, blood oxygen, skin temperature, activity, sleep apnea, and more. It’s the perfect gift for anyone who wants the benefits of a smartwatch but hates wearing watches. Best of all, it is platform agnostic, so this smart ring will work for both iPhone and Android users (although you’ll see below there’s another option if you’re on Android).
This is our favorite drone of 2025 because it combines the benefits of a quick and nimble drone with the perks of a 360º camera. From the minds of Insta360, Antigravity is a new drone company that rivals anything you’ve seen from DJI. The best part is that it’s easy to learn and comes with some nifty goggles to make remote drone flying a cinch.
Order it from Best Buy for pick-up
Have a Samsung Galaxy S25 Ultra or a Z Flip 7? The Samsung Galaxy Ring is a better smart ring gift for strict Android users. It is slimmer and offers a neat double-pinch gesture to snap the camera or dismiss notifications on Samsung phones. The Galaxy Ring also offers the best battery life of over a week when paired with a Samsung Galaxy smartwatch – or seven days on its own.
Everyone you know probably already has an Apple Watch, but the Apple Watch Series 11 is the upgrade everyone has been waiting to get. This Apple Watch features a thinner body, better battery life and a larger face than ever before. Plus, it has a more readable display thanks to its wide-angle OLED display.
Best Buy: Apple Watch Series 11
The latest iPhones are, unsurprisingly, the greatest iPhones. Offering improved battery life, better cameras, improved durability, and sleek new colors, the iPhone 17 also closes the gap on the iPhone 17 Pro more than ever before. However, if you want exceptional gaming performance and Apple’s best-ever cameras, the iPhone 17 Pro is still the one to get.
Nomad features on our best iPhone 17 cases list and we’ve reviewed many Nomad iPhone cases and Apple Watch bands on The Shortcut, all worthy stocking stuffers this season. While Apple has given up on leather cases, Nomad has filled the void with several premium leather cases. We’re also big fans of the Find My-compatible tracking card for wallets, although that’s so popular it’s currently on back order.
Order a leather case from Nomad
Do you miss having real buttons on a smartphone? Going back to Blackberry is a non-starter these days, but you can have the tactical advantage on an iPhone, thanks to Clicks. We love being able to type while viewing a full screen (hiding the on-screen keyboard) and the ability to trigger custom shortcuts with a key press (we’re big fans of shortcuts at The Shortcut). It’s the best throwback gift of the season.
Discover your family’s origins, history, and all of its intricate detail with MacFamilyTree, which pulls from billions of records to showcase your family tree in a powerful way.
Synium Software: MacFamilyTree
The AirPods Pro 3 offer several upgrades over the previous model. Not only do they sound better, last longer and fit more securely in your ears, but they also offer 2x the Active Noise Canceling of the AirPods Pro 2. They also double as a heart rate monitor, offer Live Translate and are IP57 dust and water resistant. Simply put, the best wireless earbuds just got better.
The PS5 Pro might seem like a half-step upgrade, but it finally lets you play games at the maximum resolution while also getting a smooth 60fps or higher frame rate. If you’ve heard any of your friends or family having to settle for performance mode just to get more FPS (but at the expense of max resolution), the PS5 Pro is the gift they’ve been waiting for.
One of the coolest collaborations we’ve seen, Viture and Cyberpunk 2077 developer have teamed up to create a special pair of Viture’s Luma Ultra glasses. Viture’s top-class smart glasses feature MicroOLED displays inside that can display a huge 152-inch screen in front of you at a sharp 1200p resolution. You also get the benefit of a slick 120Hz refresh rate.
Viture: Cyberpunk 2077 Luma Glasses
In 2025, we’ve only recommended self-emptying and self-cleaning robot vacuums on The Shortcut because prices for this once prestigious feature are now reasonable. One of our top picks is the Roborock Qrevo Curv, which is a winner for its dual anti-tangle system when vacuuming and mopping on its own.
We’re big fans of the Mophie brand of mobile accessories, considering it powered us to complete our Apple Vision Pro review and become the first people to take a flight using the Apple headset and blog about it.
As you’ll read in our Mophie 3-in-1 travel charger with MagSafe, this is our all-time favorite accessory for its compactness and reliability. Big and small trips alike (including this Christmas), I never travel without it.
The MacBook Pro M5 is the most exciting laptop from Apple since it started using its own silicon. The new M5 chip brings the biggest performance gains we’ve seen yet, and Apple says it includes a Neural Accelerator in each GPU core, which allows for 4x the peak GPU compute performance of M4 and 45% better graphics performance.
The Mac mini M4 is easily the best value-packed computer Apple has ever produced. For $479, you’re getting one of the most powerful Macs ever made with its powerful M4 processor and 16GB of RAM to start. It’s more compact than ever to fit in your TV cabinet or even sit tucked behind your computer monitor.
The iPad Pro OLED has been our favorite technology marvel of the year. Super thin and super gorgeous, this is the thinnest tablet we’ve ever touched. It features the first tandem OLED screen that’s brighter than other panels of its kind. This tablet also packs serious power thanks to its M4 processor.
As the iPad becomes more sophisticated, I’ve become more and more interested in the aptly named GrandPad for my aging loved ones. It’s a tablet with a simplified UI that’s designed for seniors with a companion app to help guide them remotely without you having to constantly ask, “What are you seeing on the screen now?” The GrandPad promises security and emergency-calling capabilities for extra peace of mind.
TCL’s Mini LED 4KTV comes in 65, 75, 85, and 98-inch screen sizes, but it’s the near 100-inch model that makes the biggest impression (quite literally). The TCL QM7K has 3,000 nits of peak brightness, full-array local dimming for great black levels, 144Hz refresh rate, and an Auto Game Mode, making it a fantastic choice for any home.
The Xgmi MoGo 4 is a portable thermos-sized projector that can produce a sharp 1080p picture and can be rotated 360 degrees so you can beam your favorite film on any surface. It also a built-in battery that provides 2.5 hours of video playback and six hours of music playback.
The Sony Ult Tower 9 is the ultimate party speaker. Its 25-hour battery life makes it a portable beast, and the Ult button pumps up the bass in two frequencies. You can grab the new Ult mics for $149 and enjoy some karaoke, and the new LED lights will get any party going.
The new Joy-Con 2 controllers that come with the Switch 2 are much improved over the original, but the Nintendo Switch 2 Pro Controller is a must-buy for most players. It’s been expertly refined by Nintendo, and now features two remappable back buttons, a 3.5mm headphone jack, and “smooth gliding sticks”. Oh, and Nintendo also fixed the D-Pad, at last.
Walmart: Switch 2 Pro Controller
Best Buy: Switch 2 Pro Controller
Amazon: Switch 2 Pro Controller
The Sony Field 5 is one of Sony’s latest portable speakers and offers a robust and durable design that’s water and dust resistant. The Field 5 includes 360-degree party lights that sync with your music. Expect punchy, clear sound quality thanks to Sony’s X-Balanced Speaker Unit inside.
Are you still waking up to a basic smartphone alarm? Don’t sleep on what we actually use at The Shortcut: the “Nintendo Sound Clock Alarmo,” a $99 alarm clock that uses Mario, Zelda, Pikmin and other themes to wake you up. It even uses neat motion detection technology to ensure you haven’t fallen back asleep.
We summed up our Nvidia RTX 5070 Ti review by saying it costs $250 less than the RTX 5080 and is almost as good. It delivers surprisingly strong performance at 4K 60fps ultra settings, even without DLSS and multiframe generation. Prices are now more in line with MSRP too.
The new M5 Apple Vision Pro comes with an additional head strap for increased comfort and a more powerful chip that gives you longer battery life and faster performance. It may be expensive, but Apple’s headset is still the best for VR experiences, such as watching immersive movies and interacting with virtual tabletop games.
If you use more than one computer to manage your life or work, Screen 5 is a must-have. It lets you access your Mac, Windows PC, Linux PC, or Raspberry Pi from wherever you are in the world as long as you have an internet connection (even from a Vision Pro).
Keep tabs on everything you need a moment’s notice with Raindrop IO. It’s a handy tool that lets you bookmark basically anything you want, from books to songs to articles and more, all while browsing your computer the way you normally do.
For the designer in your life, Motif allows you to streamline your design process in one intuitive space with your entire team.
For someone who wants to be the next great podcaster, get the Vocaster One. It’s an easy-to-use interface to control your microphone, headphone volume, and more while you’re live.
We use this to edit our videos. Get access to top-quality motion design elements, and easy captions for Final Cut Pro, and more to take your creative projects to the next level. There are also a host of plug-ins for Adobe Premiere Pro and DaVinci Resolve.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news right at the end, but April is only four months away. That means tax season is right around the corner, and the perfect gift for anyone who files independently (like us!) is a TurboTax subscription to help lower their bill come April.
There’s a reason this has been Amazon’s #1 software seller for four consecutive months every year from January to April.
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