High tech goodies for Christmas

Lots of people will be shopping right up until Christmas day. If you're one of them, we have some ideas for you. <br/><br/>News on 6 reporter Lori Fullbright shows us four of the most popular last

Friday, December 23rd 2005, 9:28 am

By: News On 6

Lots of people will be shopping right up until Christmas day. If you're one of them, we have some ideas for you.

News on 6 reporter Lori Fullbright shows us four of the most popular last minute gifts for fans of electronics.

Don't let the all the gadgets and gizmos inside an electronics store intimidate you. High-tech gifts are very popular and can be easy to buy. A hot item for grownups is a flat screen TV, little ones for the kitchen or big ones for the bedroom, ranging in price from a few hundred to the thousands.

Circuit City store director Dale Pitts: "It really looks more aesthetically pleasing in the home and it's a really big item for us this year."

For a younger crowd, think video game players and games. There's the XBox 360, PlayStation 2 and Nintendo game cube. They cost from $150 to $400 and the games to go with them range from $20 to $60. The portable games are especially hot.

Computers are the third high-tech gift you can buy last minute, for teenagers to college kids to grown-ups on the go. They'll run you from $800 to $1,500 and you don't have to know computers to give or receive one. Dale Pitts: "We do upgrades, repairs; we'll even teach you how to use a computer. We can make you computer literate."

And, perhaps most popular of all, MP3 players. They start at $80 and go to $400 and allow you to upload songs from your CD collection to your computer, to your player or download new songs from your computer, then take your music with you anywhere. Now, they do even more. Dale Pitts: "Some of the new I-pods play videos, so you can watch movies, pictures, some really good selections."

In a hurry, you can go to Circuit Cityâ€™s website, place your order, then drive to the store and they'll have it ready for you to pick up within 24 minutes.

Circuit City did a survey of 4,200 men and women to see when they finish their holiday shopping. 26 percent are all done a month or more in advance. 30 percent said they finish two weeks ahead of time, 26 percent were still shopping within a week of Christmas and 18 percent admitted they were still shopping on Christmas Eve. Of course, more of those were men, than women.

For men shopping at the last minute, what about gift cards? Don't worry, 82 percent of those surveyed say they like getting gift cards, women like them even more than men.