Apple guide to Christmas gifts: iPhone, iPad and accessories

We often find ourselves in the situation of having to change our electronic devices for personal or business needs. Living in a difficult period caused by the current pandemic, technology has proved to be truly essential both for smart working and for distance learning. The smartphone has now become a must-have for everyone, but we often have to equip ourselves with other devices and accessories to be able to work and study.

In this buying guide we will analyze a selection of Apple products, perfect for both work and leisure. Approaching the Christmas period (and therefore to that of gifts) we want to help you choose which smartphones, tablets and accessories to buy for you or, in case, to give them to your loved ones. The relatively low cost of the setup could make it appealing especially to high school or college students. With a total budget of around € 1,400, you will take home a complete package of products of the highest value, ready to be exploited to the full for a long period of time. You may not even need to buy all the devices offered, or you already have a device listed. The figure chosen is still relatively low if you think about the amount of devices present, especially since for the same price you would take home a single low-end Apple laptop. If the price is too high to spend in a single purchase, you can easily decide to buy something in a few months to complete your ecosystem, perhaps waiting for an additional discount or offer.

Apple Ecosystem

Apple is a company that offers numerous technological products, all able to communicate perfectly with each other. Since Apple itself designs both the hardware and the software of most of their devices, they are particularly well optimized, especially as regards the synchronization between them. Owning an iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch will make you feel part of a so-called "ecosystem", where with a single account you will have access to all your resources, synchronized instant by instant between all your devices. It will therefore be extremely easy to share applications purchased in the App Store, subscriptions such as those to Apple Music and Apple TV +, files and documents on iCloud Drive, all your passwords and access information between your iPhone, iPad, Mac and Apple Watch. , notes, contacts, calendars, messages, Safari favorites, games, WiFi passwords, paired Bluetooth devices and other more or less important information.

Competing companies struggle to offer such an optimized ecosystem and valid products in the smartphone, computer, tablet and smartwatch categories. Precisely for this reason we have chosen Apple as a reference for the products, especially for those who want to have all the devices of the same brand, in order to take advantage of the advantages listed above. Clearly, there are some excellent products offered by the competition, but they may struggle to communicate optimally between devices of different categories.

iPhone

As mentioned above, the smartphone appears to be a must-have device in such a selection. We all now own one of these devices, which day after day allow us to keep in touch via telephone, messages and social networks, but also to perform a lot of other functions such as taking photos, playing music and other multimedia content, surfing the internet and check email, track our location to help us reach any destination and so on. There are smartphones of different price ranges, which typically start at around € 100 up to top-of-the-range ones from € 1,000 or more.

For our pre-established budget, we have chosen to consider a refurbished iPhone X, easily available on Amazon at around 430 €. The quality of the refurbished products is certainly high and offers you a one year warranty for any problem encountered. In value for money this refurbished iPhone X is therefore an excellent choice, which will allow you to get an iPhone with modern design and sufficiently powerful hardware to be supported in the coming years with software updates. In fact, Apple has greatly extended the "life" of its smartphones, supporting them for six or more years with continuous updates of the operating system. This 2017 iPhone X should therefore guarantee you support for at least another four years with excellent performance and fluidity in the user experience.

iPad

For years Apple wants to change the way people perceive a device like the iPad. Born as a simple tablet for carrying out some basic functions, the iPad has evolved a lot over the years, both on the hardware and software side. To date, just as Apple claims, it can be perfectly considered the new modern computer, capable of definitively replacing the classic laptops. Of course there will always be special needs for which one might need a classic laptop PC, but for most people, the iPad has already become a great replacement for the traditional computer. Thanks to its ease of use and the App Store full of software of all kinds (with different options also aimed at professionals), the iPad turns out to be a real gem not to be overlooked when you want a complete package of electronic devices for work and leisure. Apple has also introduced some really interesting accessories for this tablet, such as the Magic Keyboard and the Apple Pencil. Two essential products for those who love to write or draw on their tablet. Below you will find an advertisement made by Apple to highlight how the iPad is able to change the way you perceive a laptop, highlighting its strengths just mentioned.



For the our selection we have chosen the iPad Air of 2020, which represents a good compromise between the "basic" iPad and the Pro one. It is often found at € 669 on Amazon. Thanks to its 10.9 "display it is really easy to carry around, even in a school backpack. Moreover, its versatility allows them to transform from a simple tablet for reading books into a sort of laptop. in fact, connect the practical cover-keyboard to get the perfect combination according to your needs. Thanks to iPadOS 14 you can also use the iPad to connect USB sticks and other devices such as cameras, in order to manage files, photographs and so on. Recently Apple has also introduced support for mice and trackpads, bringing the iPad even closer to the world of traditional PCs, just as we told you in this article.

Apple Pencil, AirPods and Smart Keyboard

In this section you have to decide which accessories are best suited to your needs, choosing from this short list of products suitable for this selection. the Apple Pencil, the pen that can write on your tablet with high precision. If you need to take notes at university or school, sign documents, draw for leisure or work, the pen could be a great step forward in your routine. It is possible to buy the second generation pen (clearly compatible with the iPad Air chosen previously) for about 130 €. Similarly, if you are a keyboard lover and need to type several characters, then we recommend the keyboard cover, sold directly on Amazon for around 60 €. Finally, a very useful and versatile accessory for both your new iPhone and iPad are clearly the AirPods. These Apple Wireless Earphones pair disarmingly with your iPhone and iPad, giving you great audio quality with all the freedom of wireless. They can be found on Amazon for around 130 € in their second version (probably the best in terms of quality / price).