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TechRadar's ultimate Mother's Day gift guide 2014


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Ah early May, we meet again. It's time for sunny skies, warm weather, and…wait, Mother's Day is Sunday?! Not again.

If you're flipping out over the lack of time to get mom the gift she'll really want: don't worry. We here at TechRadar are gift-giving experts and have a few ideas to totally crush that macaroni art project you gave her 10 years ago.

From the tech-savvy kind of mammas to the "honey, how do I get to Google?" We've got you covered.

We've got our first five gift ideas listed below, but more will be coming every day up until the big day on Sunday. Be sure to check back daily to see what the next gift is!

Give her the gift of Hemmingway…or any writer really

The Amazon Kindle Paperwhite is the all-around, cost-effective, PDF-reading champ. At $99 (about £59.28 or $107 AU) the Paperwhite has tons of reading options from the tie-in Kindle Store to a neat vocabulary builder. She'll never go without a book in her hand...and something new to lecture you about on her weekly phone call.

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Here's an excerpt from our review:

The 6th generation Kindle Paperwhite is the best Kindle yet, it's the most cost effective ereader on the market at £109 (in this spec range) and it easily beats the Kobo Aura on performance and design. Amazon has managed to create a fast e-ink tablet with inventive reading apps.

For the mother in motion

They say "40 is the new 20," and regardless if that makes sense to any millennial, moms all over the country are ready to take fitness plans into their own hands. And there's no better way to help her with her 2014 fitness goals than the Fitbit One.

With built-in sleep tracking and what is essentially a supped up pedometer, she'll be able to count her carbs, track her crunches, and make sure she's getting the best sleep possible. $89 (about £53 or $95 AUS) is a cheap price to make sure mom makes it to 100, right? Because in like, a decade, 100 will be the new 40.

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Here's an excerpt from our review:

"The Fitbit One is without a doubt one of the most versatile and useful fitness gadgets on the market. It's also fairly expensive. The truth is that there's nothing about the information from the Fitbit One that will make you lose weight. It's no magic bullet to weight loss. What it will do is hold you accountable. Every day you will know exactly how much you did or didn't do; whether you achieved your goals or failed miserably."

It's picture perfect, really!

Avoid the Ashton Kutcher gimmick and pick mom up a Canon PowerShot SX280 HS. With awesome automatic settings to quickly capture the warmest of familial moments to deeper controls for the aspiring Avedon in your family, the PowerShot's got everything mom needs in a point-and-shoot package.

Sure, top-tier smartphones and tablets can take decent pics and make phone calls, but do you really want to be the one with a mum taking embarrassing shots with an iPad? I didn't think so. Plus, at just $179.99 (about £107 or $194 AUS) at Best Buy this week you can use the $100 you save on something nice for you. (There's no Son's or Daughter's Days, am I right?)

http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/art/cameras/Canon/PowerShot%20SX280%20HS/Canon_PowerShot_SX280_HS_15-420-90.jpg

Here's an excerpt from our review:

What we have here is an excellent and well performing compact camera that offers lots of flexibility both to beginner users and those looking for something a little more advanced. It would also be a good camera for anybody looking to learn a little more about photography, since you could start on the fully automatic settings and work your way through the manual options.

Mad Max ain't got nothing on her

Is mom behind the wheel more than she'd like? For the road warrior matron in your life try the TomTom Start 50. Reasonably priced at $99, the Start 50 has the maps she'll need coupled with the usability that will keep you off the phone playing tech support. This recommendation comes with a caveat: The Start 50 only works with American maps. For our friends across the pond, check out the TomTom Start 60. It's got everything that's great about the Start 50, plus you know, maps for Europe and the UK.

She's got game…or she will after you buy her one

Did you come out of the womb, controller in hand? Was mom the reason you knew the names of Solid Snake, Sonic, and Mega Man before you knew the names of the presidents? She deserves a Wii U. While the Xbox One and PS4 are taking up most of the advertising bandwidth these days, Nintendo's Wii U has actually got some serious gaming chops and is worthy of mom's precious down time.

With single-player games like Scribblenauts Unlimited and Pikmin 3 she'll be able to get lost in her own world, and with multiplayer titles like Super Mario 3D Land, Rayman Legends, and upcoming Mario Kart 8, you'll be able to join in the fun too.

http://mos.futurenet.com/techradar/art/games_consoles/Nintendo_Wii_U/nintendo_wii_u-420-90.jpg

Here's an excerpt from our review:

For Nintendo fans looking to finally enter the HD era, the Wii U may seem like a beacon of light in an endless downpour – and if you're coming from the Wii, it will be quite impressive, indeed. Not only are the publisher's own properties sleeker than ever before, but third-parties can finally deliver the great games they've been making for other systems in recent years.

Need more inspiration? Check out last year's gift guide!

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