We busy and tech-savvy young professionals (YPs) love our gadgets. Anything that can almost magically simplify our lives, allow for easy multitasking and enable us to enjoy luxuries and necessities anywhere and everywhere are top of holiday wish lists this season. Here are our top three options for entertainment, work and fitness, as fuelled by Ford Fusion.
Entertainment: Jawbone Jambox (pictured above)
The bold and compact Jawbone Jambox wireless speaker takes portable music to an all new level and is perfect for the jet-setting or outdoor-loving YP. Available in an assortment of bold, vibrant colours, the speaker is no larger than a television remote and lets you listen to all of your favourite music, podcasts, video, apps, games and more from any phone, music player, tablet or laptop. This means you can listen anywhere, from the beach or a dock to an otherwise too quiet party – no power outlet required.
With its two powerful acoustic drivers and ultra-small dome, it’s loud, with an output capacity of 85 decibels, sounding like a five-speaker stereo. The device only gets better with time, with new apps, software updates and new features available at mytalk.jawbone.com, which is always be up to date. Durable, with its stainless steel construction and industrial-weight molded rubber casing, coupled with a long battery life, the Jawbone Jambox is travel friendly and also functions as a speakerphone – convenient for conference calls.
Available at the Apple Store for $200
Work: Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga
Offering the best of both worlds for YPs who want it all, the Lenovo IdeaPad Yoga is a convertible ultrabook laptop and tablet PC. Taking full advantage of the Windows 8 functionality, the forward-looking hybrid device can seamlessly transform into four different forms: a standard laptop clamshell, a tablet, a tent-style and an easel. Combining the efficiency of an Ultrabook with the touch features of a tablet, it is versatile to accommodate a variety of professional situations and needs, durable for travel and simple to use. The device boasts up to eight hours of battery life, up to 128GB SSD storage and up to 8GB of memory.
Fitness: Nike FuelBand
Fresh to the Canadian market as of October 30, the Nike Fuelband fitness tracker bracelet holds you accountable to those fitness goals as it documents calories burned, steps taken, jacks jumped, plus more. The Fuel point measures how active you are, with fuel points earned the more you move. Users set a daily goal of how active they would like be and how much NikeFuel they hope to achieve, and a series of 20 LED lights switch from red-to-green as they get closer to their goal. At midnight, everything resets. The FuelBand wraps around your wrist by the way of a LiveStrong bracelet and comes in black and two black and white see-through options. The battery lasts for days and is recharged by plugging into your computer, where all the accumulated data is sent to your Nike+ account (which may be accessed from any web-connected computer, or via a Smartphone app), which neatly logs all your activity. To boast or compare your progress to your peers, you can share the data on Facebook and Twitter.
Available at Nike Toronto and at Apple stores nationwide and Apple online for $149