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The holiday season is upon us. And so is the need to find cool gifts. Here’s a roundup of some of the presents that the friends and family of Spot Cool Stuff will be finding under their trees shortly. If are one of those friends and family then please don’t read any further. Otherwise, check out our gift recommendations for the photographers and music lovers in your life, as well as for those who (seemingly) already have everything.

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It is impossible for a lightweight, battery-powered portable speaker system to produce the same sound quality that a larger, high end plug-into-the-wall unit does. The laws of physics are too stacked against small, power-efficient speakers for that. But the On Tour portable speaker system from JBL comes remarkably close to breaking these laws. Newton himself would be amazed at the big sound that comes out of these little speakers. We are guessing that he’d also appreciate the On Tour’s design that includes a sliding cover and optional top clamp that can hold a portable game system (Newton being the sort of guy who surely would have had a Sony PSP).

What’s most remarkable about the On Tour system, though, is its low cost. At the current Amazon sale price of $50~60 there is absolutely no other speaker system that provides as much quality for as little money.

BUY

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Until now you’ve used exclusively auto focus point-and-shoot cameras. You’d like to move up to a “real” digital camera with a removable lens and the capability to make manual settings. But maybe you are a little nervous about making this change to a manually focusable digital SLR.

Or, you already own a digital SLR but are looking for a second one to use as a knock around camera, a camera to bring with you on a trip when you want to leave your “good” camera at home, for example.

For both of those cases—for the novice photographer looking for that first digital SLR camera or for the semi-professional looking for a complimentary second (or third) camera—the Olympus Evolt E420 is the perfect choice. Let us count the reasons why:

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