Hypebeast’s 2024 Gift Guide: Tech, Toys and Gaming

Quick question before we get into it: how is it already December?

If, like us, you aren’t sure where the year has gone, still haven’t finished your holiday shopping, and seek some much needed gift-buying-inspiration, this week’s Hypebeast Gift Guide has you covered.

Especially if the lucky person on the receiving end is into tech, toys or gaming – for which 2024 has been a pretty good year.

Sony celebrated 30 years of PlayStation releasing by a special edition 30th Anniversary Collection so limited it sold out before we could sign into our PlayStation Plus account, while Apple threw its hat into the mixed reality ring with its $3.5K USD Apple Vision Pro headset. Dyson doubled-down on headphones, and tech’s disruptive newcomer, Nothing, continued to do things differently with several drops that included a glow in the dark phone. Higround continued to make keyboards cool by releasing cool keyboards, dropping collaborations that included Brain Dead and Hideo Kojima, Post Malone tagged Backbone for a collaborative games controller, and Samsung launched its Galaxy Ring and took over NYFW.

There’s a lot to choose between this year, so Hypebeast has handpicked a selection of gift ideas to give you some inspiration. Check them out below.

Apple Watch Ultra 2 “Black”

Apple recently released a new, super sleek “Black” version of its titanium, sports-focused Apple Watch Ultra 2, a color popularly requested by fans that joins the original (and only) finish, “Natural”, available at launch last year. It features a beautifully crisp OLED display that reaches 3,000 nits of maximum brightness, and it is practically scratch-proof thanks to the sapphire glass used on the screen. It’s packed full of sensors to help you navigate most sporting and every day scenarios, including an always-on altimeter, ambient and water temperature sensors, a depth gauge, as well as both electrical and optical heart sensors. The Apple Watch Ultra 2 also has a huge battery and can easily go a couple of days between charges – “up to 36 hours of normal use,” according to Apple – while the latest watchOS 11 packs enough features to set the Apple Watch Ultra 2 apart from most other smartwatches on the market.

Asus ROG Ally X

The Asus ROG Ally X is portable gaming powerhouse – the kind of console a gamer could only dream about in the not too distant past. Essentially, it’s a powerful gaming PC complete with a Full HD display and controller that have been merged together and packed down into a single, ergonomic handheld form factor. It runs on Windows 11 and is capable of running many “triple A” titles, including the new Call of Duty: Black Ops 6. Compared to Asus’ very first ROG Ally console, the latest ROG Ally X features a hugely improved battery that’s been doubled from 40Wh to 80Wh, a generous 1TB of internal storage, and 24GB of fast LPDDR5X RAM that makes for a smooth and reliable playing experience. It runs everything from Steam to Xbox Cloud Gaming, and can be connected to an external display for big screen gaming. Want to know more? Check out our review, now.

LEGO “Over the Moon with Pharrell Williams”

Pharrell’s “Over the Moon” LEGO set features 51 minifigure faces – the most LEGO has ever included in a single set. Over 30 of these were designed especially for it, with LEGO and Pharrell even working together to create a brand new color in the toymaker’s production process to better match Mr Williams’ skin tone. The “Over the Moon” set consists of 966 pieces you can build into a black and gold space shuttle, complete with a colorful jet-stream that sits an an angle when displayed. Pharrell loves space and his space-inspired set would make a great gift for anyone into building bricks, or even just fans of Skateboard P himself.

Meta Quest 3S

The Meta Quest 3S is the latest mixed-reality headset from the tech giant and shares many of the features found its flagship headset, the Meta Quest 3, released last year. These include having the very same chipset and RAM configuration, giving it a performance on par with its more expensive sibling that allows it to play all of the same games. It uses a high-definition fresnel lens with a display that provides 1832 x 1920 pixels per eye, and features a 4,324 mAH battery that gives you about two-and-a-half hours of run time on average. The Meta Quest 3S the perfect introduction to the worlds of virtual and augmented reality and its relatively low cost (compared to, say, Apple’s $3.5K USD headset) means its it won’t break the bank, either. It’s available in two storage options (128 GB and 256 GB).

Sony PlayStation 5 Pro

Sony‘s super-powered PlayStation 5 Pro finally launched last month, having been officially announced in September after spending a year or so doing the rounds in various rumor mills. While not much has changed in terms of the console’s design, it has been given a performance boost under the hood that includes a faster Wi-Fi 7 module, a 2TB SSD for twice the onboard storage, a more powerful CPU, and GPU that delivers 67% better graphical performance, including advanced ray-tracing that renders things like lighting and shadows in the most lifelike ways ever seen on a PlayStation console. It also features Sony’s new “PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution” (PSSR) upscaling technology, breathing new graphical life into existing games as well as allowing new ones to be played with improved visuals when compared to the original PS5.

SteelSeries Arctis GameBuds

SteelSeries makes some of the best gaming accessories around, but the brand is especially well-regarded for its headphones – it recently updated its popular Arctis product line with a new set of earbuds it calls Arctis GameBuds that it describes as “the ultimate HiFi listening experience for console gaming.” The GameBuds are available in three options: an Xbox-licensed model in black, as well as two PlayStation focused model that comes in either black or white – all three versions are also compatible with PC and Switch. The Arctis Gamebuds can also connect to pretty much anything over Bluetooth, like your phone or laptop, and for serious gamers who depend on smooth, lag-free audio the earbuds come bundled with a 2.4GHz wireless dongle to connect wirelessly with next to no latency. All models feature both active noise cancellation and transparency modes, immersive spatial audio, a 10-hour battery life and can be Qi wirelessly charged. They also have an IP55 rating making them water, dust and dirt resistant. And, if you’re an Xbox gamer, SteelSeries has included over 100 audio presets that can be accessed via the Arctis app on both iOS and Android.