Consumer Technology Review - Mother's Day Ideas

To help you avoid rushing around on Saturday trying to get some flowers and chocolates for Mother's Day, in our Consumer Technology slot, Ciaran O'Byrne is casting his eye over some gift ideas which may make Mammy smile...

Small neat point and click digital cameras.

You can buy a decent 5 mega pixel camera for as little €40.

Hitachi have a point and shoot camera - HDC 570 - that has movie capture, a 2.3 inch screen, and runs on AAA batteries, and costs only €41.99 from Argos.

Olympus have a 14 mega pixel compact camera (the X43) with a 5 times optical zoom, and very useful features such Face Recognition and Anti Blur features, along with red-eye fix, and movie capture. All for €95.99

Above €100 there's the likes of the Nikon Coolpix - they have a range of models from €120 to €199, with various features such as movie capture

Do remember that you'll need memory cards for all digital cameras which increases the price and not all cameras will come with decent protective camera bags, so we are talking about €20 for a 4GB memory card and another €20 for a small camera bag on top of the camera price.

Now, I'm not suggesting you limit it to compact cameras - you can range all the way up to a Pro-Digital SLR. You are talking about €500 to €600 for a Lumix G1, and if you go up to a full scale DSLR you are talking about anything from €500 to €3000, but if Mammy is a serious photographer, you are better off asking her exactly what she wants rather than take a chance on something.

You also have Digital Frames in mind?

To accompany Mammy's new camera, Digital Frames are not a bad idea - these are basically a photo frame sized LED coulour screen that has a memory card and contains a number of digital photos and cycles through them. These have been around a number of years now, but the prices were just silly before. They have come down to something more realistic now and it might help out if your Mother has a whole bunch of photos of the children or even all the grandchildren competing for space on the mantlepiece.

Prices start as low as €34 for some brands, depending on the resolution, the size, capacity and other features.

Sony have launched have launched a range of Digital Frames with 2GB memory cards that could store up to 4000 images, so everyone in your extended family can say they have the place of honour above the fireplace or TV set. Models such as the X85 have an 8 inch screen size and cost €89 from Sony Stores. They can detect which way up they are, so the photo is never upside down, you can change frame colours, and some models even have remote controls.

What if you are yet to change over to Digital?

If you or your mother have loads of negative film strips from the days before you changed over to a digital camera then a negative or slide scanner might be a nice gift.

The Veho USB Negative & Slide Scanner - €74.99 Peats World of Electronics, cheaper than the Sterling price at present.

Photo negatives can decay as much as printed photos, so converting them to digital format is a great way of saving them.

This is a small neat unit, that powers off your laptop, you load the 35mm negatives into a plastic frame and run them one by one into the scanner, and you can also use it on 35mm projector slides.

Once scanned then you can edit them yourself or blow them up in size and print them yourself.

Pocket Camcorders are also proving very popular at present with prices starting from under €50 and up to nearly €200.

Some, such as Alba and Vivitar look very trendy and resemble 60's or 70's style camcorders, that fit in one hand and are the size of mobile phone, some in High Definition as well.

If you Mammy is a very outdoorsy type, I like weather stations - Nothing says I love you Mam like a forecast of heavy rain and a temperature reading of minus 5 degrees out the back garden.

Oregon Scientific make attractive neat digital clocks and weather stations which give indoor and outdoor temperatures, radio controlled time, weather warnings, humidity levels and alarms, and cost from €40 to €99 from Argos.

But if you want to pamper Mammy, you could try "Cozy Toes", which are microwaveable cozy boots made by Longford firm, Waveware, which are slippers, with a heatable insole, which you pop in the microwave to heat up, and then put back in the slipper, and they give you up to 45 minutes of warmth, while you walk around. And they cost €14.95, and are available from the likes of McCabe's Pharmacies, along with Healthwise and Horgan's Pharmacies. Check www.waveware.ie for more details.

Two brief mentions of mobile phones - we reviewed the Samsung Solar Powered phone, the Samsung Blue Earth, which they are promoting for "Earth Mothers". What I didn't get to mention before was that as well as a solar cell back up, it has a "fake call" function, if you want to get out of a meeting or unwanted you press the volume button and the mobile will do a great fake call from a private number 10 seconds later.

And finally we got a lot of reaction to our review of the Emporia Life Plus phone, which is aimed at the older market. It has large easy to use buttons, and big clear screen, and an emergency button function on the back, which will contact up to five people, one after the other, if you have a fall, or are feeling very unwell, and are unable to make a full phone call yourself. It costs approx €49 on O2 Bill Pay or €130 pre pay, and is available from selected O2 stores or from The Fone Factory in Dublin and Galway.