I’m going to start with tech products, because there are so many cyber deals today.
We’re an Apple family. So, I have an iPhone, an iPad, and an iMac. Jonah has an iBook for college. I need to upgrade my iPhone this year. My old iPhone 5S still works, but I need a better cell camera. I think I’m requesting the iPhone 11 this year. With the new phone, I’ll need a new case, too.
Because we use these products for years and years, I don’t mind spending big bucks on this items. Also, they are cross-over items, meaning I use them for work and for fun.
Good headphones are a must for the boys. Steve and I use wireless earbuds for running.
Ian is a Nintendo Switch kid, while Jonah uses Xbox. I’ll do game recommendations later.
Accessories like multi-port plugs and wifi extenders are frequently used.
I use my Nikon 5100 nearly every day to take pictures of the kids or books for my Etsy Shop. I leave the camera in the kitchen, so it’s always ready to record an especially good dinner. The camera is ten years old and still works too well to replace yet, but if I was going to upgrade, I would go for a camera with wifi, so I could more easily post pictures to Instagram and the blog. A former photography teacher told me that he leaves his good camera at home for typical evenings and slides a smaller camera in his pocket for quick, spontaneous shots. I haven’t done that yet, but would consider it.
Apt. 11d 
I have the iPhone 11 Pro (newly purchased), with the 3 lens camera. I upgraded because my old phone was dying and because I was intrigued by the camera.
I have a lot of cameras. On my recent trip, I took the Lumix zs200 (which is my purse camera), the Olympus E-M1 M2, and the Canon 5DM4 (listed in order of size, the last two with both wide angle & telephoto zoom lenses). I used all three, but the second two never left the house. And, I took pictures at the garden with holiday lights with the iPhone. The iPhone (with software processing) takes hand held, low light photos with long exposure that can’t be replicated with my cameras without a tripod.
It’s possible that the most pictures on this trip were taken with the phone. If I’m not using the long zooms on the cameras and the light conditions aren’t great, I’m finding that the iPhone takes pictures as good as I can take with the other cameras (in the time I’m willing to expend for these “document” pictures). The super wide angle lens on the iPhoe allowed me to take a picture of the entire group at the restaurant dining table — the only camera in my collection which worked for that picture. And, sharing is so much simpler. Instead of downloading, I could airdrop to other folks, share to the common album (and, of course, share to facebook, twitter, or instagram, though I don’t do that much). My cameras all have wifi, but they connect to the phone, not to the internet, so, it is still tedious to transfer.
So, a thumbs up on the iPhone — for photography that isn’t going to printed, where zoom (birds, children far away) or fast speed (sports, birds), or significant creative control aren’t necessary (creative zooming, adjusting exposure, custom editing), I think a lot of people won’t think they need anything else.
LikeLike
For all the Apple stuff, I’d recommend Apple Care+. Over the years, it has paid off for us.
One macbook had gone through the high school wars, needed some repairs, also had a recall on one component. Apple replaced almost everything for something like $59, which was shipping.
LikeLike