Is it the best point-and-shoot camera you can buy? Definitely not. But is it the best value? Heck yes, says Spot Cool Stuff.

It’s Cyber Monday! Online deals for gadgets and electronic stuff abound. But which products are a genuine good deal as opposed to only being, well, cheap?

Here’s a look at six tech products in the former category. Our selections range greatly in price (from $35 to almost $5,000) but each represents a high value in its own way. Each is also an item Spot Cool Stuff loves.

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Almost everyone reading this has perused Google’s collection of satellite images, either on Google Maps or with Google Earth. Perhaps you’ve wanted to get a bird’s eye view of your own home or visually traveled to some far away political hotspot. But one place you haven’t easily been able to travel via satellite image — back in time.

At least, that was the case until recently. Last Thursday, to be specific. That’s when Google — together with TIME Magazine, NASA and the U.S. Geological Survey — launched Timelapse, a zoomable, interactive web tool that lets you easily compare satellite images taken between 1984 and 2012 of nearly any location.

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Can can one person possibly brings gifts to all the children of the world in one night?

That’s many-a-child’s first skeptical query about the Santa Claus story. For parents so inclined to provide a modern answer to that question — and for anyone looking for some online Christmasy fun — there are several websites and smartphone apps that purport to give the exact real-time GPS coordinates of Santa as he makes his way around the world delivering presents on Christmas Eve. Below is a review of our three favorites.

A note to parents: None of these Santa-centric websites seem to agree on exactly where Saint Nick is at any given moment. We suggest you stick to looking at one, lest you provoke more questions than answers.

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When the iPad first launched, then Apple CEO Steve Jobs remarked in an interview that the company would never built a 7-inch version of its tablet. Customers, he said, wouldn’t want them.

Since then two things have happen. First, sadly, Steve Jobs has passed away. And, second, a slew of 7-inch tablets have rocketed in popularity, cutting significantly into Apple’s market share. Three tablets in particular saw their sales climb: the Google Nexus 7, the Amazon Kindle Fire HD and the Barnes & Noble Nook HD.

The combination of both of those events lead Apple to launch their own 7-inch tablet: The Apple iPad mini. So how does it compare to those competitors mention above? Our review:

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It seems that nearly every large electronics company is getting into the tablet computer business. So no surprise that Google is too. The company recently announced its Google Nexus 7, a tablet that takes direct at Amazon’s Kindle Fire.

Like the Fire, the Nexus 7 is designed primarily to read eBooks and watch videos. Like the Fire, the Nexus 7 has a 7-inch screen. And both tablets (when configured with 8GB internal memory) sell for exactly the same price: $199.

So which tablet is better? Our review comparison:

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You might think of Google Street View as that feature of Google Maps that let’s you look at ground level photographs of your childhood home, a new restaurant you are trying to locate or some other street-side destination. But for several years now, Google has been expanding Street View to all sorts of locations that, well, don’t have any streets. You can use Street View to climb up the Swiss Alps, trek in Antarctica or tour some of the world’s greatest art museums. And, now, you can also use Google Street View to explore along the Amazon River.

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Welcome to the Chrome Zone.

That’s not the title of a science fiction movie (that we know of). It’s what you’ll hear when you walk into Google’s first retail store¹. It’s located not in the vacinity of Google’s California headquarters, as one might expect, but across the pond in London.

The store is named such because its featured product is the Google Chromebook notebook computer. (The notebook computers are named such because they run the Chrome operating system.)

Reportedly, Google is modeling their retail strategy after Apple. Some of the larger, flashier Apple stores have become destinations in themselves. Go to their store in Shanghai or on Fifth Avenue in New York City, for example, and you’ll see tourists from the world over snapping photos of themselves in front of large, glass-encased Apple logos. So how does the Chrome Zone in London compare to those cool shopping experiences?

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