Whether you’re a tech enthusiast or simply looking to upgrade your digital arsenal, Peter Griffin has some picks for the year’s best tech tools.
1. Philips Hue light
Sometimes you just want a bit of mood lighting for a dinner party to set the tone and overhead lights are a bit harsh. I’ve experimented with LED light strips and smart bulbs to good effect, but wanted to complement them with some lamps for the dining table. The Hue Go portable table lamp is ideal. You charge it on its pad to give you up to 48 hours of battery life, then position it wherever you want.
It will display white and coloured light, configurable with the Hue app, where you can co-ordinate it with other Hue bulbs for a tasteful lighting effect. It’s waterproofed, too, so suitable for outdoors use. It is also compatible with Bluetooth and Hue Bridge so is easy to control with voice commands or a quick lighting theme tap in the app. Rated for a 10-year lifespan.
Price: $280
2. Panasonic Z95A Amazon TV
One of the best-value high-quality TVs to hit the market this year, Panasonic’s Z95A is great for daytime viewing and movie watching in a dark room. The OLED display is bright and has a superb contrast ratio, offering almost perfect blacks. The big upgrade in this year’s model is the addition of large built-in speakers that, depending on your room set-up, may allow you to dispense with a soundbar. Great audio is available out of the box.
Panasonic took a risk in opting to use the Amazon Fire operating system to run its high-end OLED TVs, but it’s one that pays off in simple, intuitive user interface. Fire OS aggregates content from across your streaming apps on the home screen and embeds the Alexa voice assistant. The big advantage Fire TV brings to the TV for lovers of home automation is slick integration of device control into the TV user interface.
Panasonic Z95A 55-inch: from $3394
3. iPhone 16 Pro
The iPhone 16 has been overshadowed by the debut of Apple Intelligence, the AI assistant built into the new phones and available on iPhone 15 models. It does useful things such as summarise your inbox, auto-transcribe phone calls and supercharge Siri.
But Apple Intelligence will only hit its stride in 2025 as more AI tricks are released. The iPhone 16 Pro is a sensational phone without AI, for one key reason – it gives you fantastic camera features that previously you would have resorted to the larger and more expensive Pro Max for. The Pro’s upgraded camera adds 5x optical zoom and a dedicated camera control button to help you take slick-looking photos. A slim-like bezel heroes the screen which is one of the best around.
I’m a long-time Android user, but the ever-improving photography features of the iPhone Pro and new AI features have me seriously pondering a shift to Apple.
Price: from $1948
4. HP OmniBook Ultra Flip
If you are in the market for a high-performance laptop that doubles as a tablet and is designed for AI-powered tasks, HP’s new 14-inch OmniBook Ultra will appeal, particularly if you can get it at sale price. Generous on storage with a one-terabyte solid-state drive, 16GB of memory and a fast processor.
It’s a Copilot+ PC so will run artificial intelligence workloads securely – not a must-have feature at this point, but it will come into its own as AI laptop features are added.
The screen and laptop body are made from high-quality materials, and Windows 11, with touch-screen compatibility, delivers a great experience for all your work applications, though the Ultra Flip is no slouch as an entertainment gadget, too. Up to 15.5 hours of battery life will get you through a day of solid use.
Price: $3699
5. Dyson Ontrac headphones
I rarely sleep well on planes. That changed on my last trans-Pacific flight and I put that down to the incredible noise-cancelling ability of the Dyson Ontrac Bluetooth headphones I was wearing. Gone was the low roar of the engines, replaced by delicious, empty silence. The headphones are oversized, colourful and trendy-looking, not your conventional black or brushed metal look. You make a statement wearing them. The plush padding comes into its own on trips, acting as a sort of pillow for your head.
The audio output, once you’ve tweaked the equaliser settings to suit your tastes and dialled up the bass a bit, is as good as anything I’ve heard from the headphone masters. Ontrac offers a quality listening experience, with up to 55 hours of use with active noise cancelling from a three-hour battery change. Yes, they are priced at the premium end of the market, but an audiophile’s dream and they are cheaper than the Apple AirPods Max.
Price: $849
6. Airalo eSIM
Our desire to get back out into the world after the pandemic years has been accompanied by one welcome development in tech – the rise of the mobile phone eSIM. It means you can more easily activate a second mobile plan when you head abroad, rather than relying on an expensive roaming service.
This year, I’ve used Airalo for excursions abroad, primarily to the US, and found it simple and affordable. You choose an eSIM bundle of data, calls and texts in the Airalo app for the country or region you are visiting and pick a time period for coverage. You can activate the eSIM via the app or by scanning a QR code. It takes a lot of the hassle out of setting up an eSIM account and I’ve found the service to be reliable and good value. The US$16 plan (3GB of data, 60 minutes calling, 30 texts) suits my needs for up to two weeks of travel to the US.
Price: US$7-$49 (for US eSIM)
7. Chargeasap Flash Plus Pro
We now have so many battery-powered devices the challenge is keeping them all charged, particularly on holiday trips where you might have irregular access to power outlets. The Flash Plus Pro has a generous 25000mAh capacity and is capable of charging up to six USB devices simultaneously, including MacBooks, iPads, iPhones and Android devices.
It will even wirelessly charge an Apple Watch. It’s Magsafe compatible so will also charge Android devices equipped with a magnetic ring.
Sturdy and compact, it weighs just over half a kilo and has a digital display to show its charging status. Fast charging is supported, and pass-through charging, so you can charge the Flash Plus Pro at the same time as all the devices you have plugged into it. Perfect for digital nomads.
Price: US$289
8. Kindle Paperwhite
The experience of reading e-books on a Kindle will never match the tactile sensation of folding back a paperback. That just screams summer. But a Kindle is just far more practical and lets you access new releases with the tap of a button. Amazon’s bestselling e-book reader since 2012 is the Paperwhite and the formula gets a few tweaks here with 25% faster page turns, a better contrast ratio for easier reading, and a thinner body and slightly larger 7-inch screen.
You’ll get up to three months of battery life, and a generous 16GB of storage for thousands of books. The Paperwhite is waterproof so ideal for reading in the bath or spa pool. The Signature edition adds wireless charging, too.
Price: $329 (Signature $359)
9. Technics earbuds
Fancy headphones are one thing, but for listening on the move, or in the gym, you need a pair of lightweight earbuds that still deliver reasonable audio. The entry-level Technics EAH-AZ40M2 offers the best mix of features, durability and sound quality for the money. The build quality of the earbuds and the case they come in is solid and four ear-tip options are included.
The touch surface of the earbuds lets you control functions easily and, fully charged, the buds will give you 5.5 hours of music playback with noise cancellation switched on, and 18 hours with the case. Sound-wise, you get clear, spacious audio, ideal for podcasts, phone calls and a wide range of music genres, though bass-heavy tracks aren’t as well served. But for the price, you’ll have few complaints with these earbuds.
Price: $158
10. Perplexity Pro
I’ve tried all of the key premium AI assistants this year, ChatGPT Pro, Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini among them. While I love Gemini’s integration into my Google account, the most useful AI tool in my book is Perplexity. It beats the others thanks to its higher level of accuracy, the quality of its citations, and the depth of answers it produces.
I’m using it every day via the iMac and Android apps as an alternative to Google search queries, and it has paid back its admission price by making me a more efficient researcher.
The app design is still a bit clunky, but search queries are fast and I now have a large library of topics to refer to. Test the waters with the free version (limited to five Pro searches a day) before committing to a monthly sub.
Price: US$20 per month
