Brooklyn-based Etronics knows you didn't plan ahead. It knows you wrote a reminder to yourself but misplaced it. It knows you meant well. Really. It did. That's why, if you're lucky enough to live in or near the five boroughs of New York City, you can purchase a cool toy from them by 3 p.m. on December 24 and still get it delivered that very day. Yes, it's true.

We don't mean to encourage bad planning on your part but with enablers like this what's any self-respecting true procrastinator to do? We say wait until the last minute and give it a whirl.

A flat fee of $25 covers the delivery charge -- and that includes delivery of heavy items, like TVs, or really huge gaming accessories (example only -- they don't really sell these).

Of course you could always go for a gift card -- or even an online gift certificate -- but all that does is reveal how little effort you put into getting a present. So we say get something with real heft. And don't worry -- your secret is safe with us.

One last note: In a quick look at what they have available, we saw a lot of "Out Of Stock" items, so your procrastination may still have gotten the best of you.

Related links:

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Looking for a way to spread a little holiday cheer without expanding your carbon footprint? Many are switching over to LED lights this season to save electricity, even NYC's Rockefeller Center. But, you can go even further. Check out these solar-powered, LED Christmas lights, which will light up your holiday season -- even if you're living completely off the grid.

The $30 set from Hammacher Schlemmer includes 50 lights and a rechargeable base station. The base holds two rechargeable AA batteries, which it juices up during the day. At night the lights will glow for upwards of eight hours -- assuming of course the thing didn't get buried in the snow the day before. They're the perfect way to show your true holiday color: green (even though the lights themselves are blueish white).

From Shiny Shiny

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A reader writes: I'm getting ready to go on vacation for the holidays, and I want to bring along a small point-and-shoot digital camera. Thing is, I want the thing to be able to do a little bit of everything, so I'm willing to spend around $300. I'm mostly concerned about picture quality, fast movement, and lots of flexibility in terms of lighting situations as I'll be taking pictures both during the day and at night, inside and outside.

Hey reader: There are plenty of $300 point-and-shoot digital cameras out there, so we understand your confusion. Sounds like you need a feature-packed camera that won't break the wallet -- or the fanny pack -- for your vacation.

We recently got to play around with Panasonic's new Lumix DMC-FX33 camera, and despite the crazy confusing name, it's a great little unit. It's super small, has a big 2.5-inch screen and has plenty of scene modes for all your vacation-taking needs.

One thing that really sets this one apart is how easy it is to use. If you want to turn off the flash, just push a button. If you want to take a picture inside and don't want to think about the flash and ISO settings, just put the camera in auto mode and it will adjust everything for you. All that said, if you're a bit of a camera geek like we are, you can manually set just about everything.

What makes this camera stand out is Panasonic's use of 28mm Leica optics, which are some of the best lenses in the biz. Typically, Leica lenses are only available in much more expensive cameras.

Outside of that, this camera has all the standard features you would want in this price range. It does 8.1 megapixels, has a wide 28mm lens, uses inexpensive SD cards, does 4x optical zoom, has a macro setting (for close-up pictures of flowers and what-not), a widescreen video mode and this it's pretty quick when you need to take multiple pictures. Finally, for fashionistas, the Lumix comes in an assortment of colors: black, silver, blue, and the brown seen above.

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LCD (liquid crystal display) high-definition televisions have taken the HDTV market by storm. When they started to go mainstream nearly a decade ago they were expensive and couldn't match the picture quality of the rear-projection or plasma sets of the day. These days, though, they're inexpensive, efficient, look great, and are super-lightweight. All that has combined to give them huge popularity among consumers. LCD's popularity is so clear that Sony is getting out of the rear-projection television (RPTV) market, focusing entirely on LCD televisions.

Sony already ditched their plasma production line this time three years ago to focus on LCD and rear-projection. That the company is focusing solely on LCD is an indicator of just how dominant the technology has become. The problems that plagued early sets, such as poor contrast ratios and dull colors when viewed from an angle, have been all but eliminated. Meanwhile, other TV manufacturers like Toshiba and Philips have also ditched rear-projection televisions. RPTV's rely on an internal bulb to beam an image onto the back of a plastic screen. Rear-projection televisions are even cheaper than LCDs inch-for-inch, but they can't match the form of the one- or two-inch-thin flat-panel displays, a feature many shoppers find appealing.

If you were in the market for one of Sony's SXRD rear-projection sets, better hurry up and pull the trigger while you still can. Or, you could just save your pennies for a few more years until OLED televisions get cheap enough to kill off LCDs.

From Engadget.

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You bought gifts for everyone -- even the mailman -- except for your gadget-obsessed loved one. Problem is, he (or she) already has everything. Fret not, because we have a category in our legendary Switched Gift Guide just for you. In fact, it's called "Man / Woman Who Has Everything". Really. Check it out, and be done with this thing we call holiday shopping. Click here to get browsing >>

Today, Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime announced that due to massive demand for the Nintendo Wii, the company will offer a rain check program for those who can't get the console.

The program, announced by Fils-Aime on a conference call with Switched.com and others in the gaming press, will be offered via Gamestop retailers on December 20 and 21. If the store is out of stock, you can buy a "rain check" for a Nintendo Wii that you are guaranteed to get in the month of January. You will have to pay for the rain check in full at $249 and pick up the Wii by January 29.

So, even if you can't get the actual Wii on Christmas, maybe you'll get a little piece of paper that says you'll get one some time in January.

Also, Fils-Aime promised that "six major retailers" will have Wiis this weekend, so... good luck!

LG Electronics announced it is putting its second-generation hybrid high definition disc player on retail shelves, making good on a promise made in September at the CEDIA trade show to have the new devices ready for the holidays.

The LG Super Blu Player, officially known as the BH200, will carry a $999 price tag and is capable of reading high-definition discs in the two competing formats currently on the market, Blu-ray and HD-DVD. (Blu-ray is supported primarily by Sony and Panasonic while HD-DVD is the darling of Toshiba and Microsoft.) The player also works with standard DVDs.

Until the consumer electronics industry can settle on a single high definition format for discs -- something we don't expect to happen anytime soon -- a dual format player is the only solution for movie aficionados who just have to have the latest movie in HD.

While Samsung has announced its new hybrid player will be out soon for $200 less, during a visit to LG's headquarters in scenic Palisades, N.J., marketing vice president Allan Jason pointedly explained the value in LG's offering. "It's one thing to say you have a better price on a product. It's another to actually have product on store shelves," he said. LG says the BH200 is available at retailers nationwide, however a quick check of Best Buy's Web site shows product is sold out there and at its stores across the country -- even in Minneapolis, Best Buy's home town. Same goes for Circuit City online and at its retail locations, even in its Richmond, Va., backyard.

Kudos to LG for having a popular product. Too bad for those of us not fast enough to the store to grab one.

From BetaNews.

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Greenpeace has been making a lot of noise lately with its attacks on Apple for using nasty stuff in the iPhone and in general for not being very green. Apple is implementing plans for getting greener, and now it seems Greenpeace is moving on to, well, greener pastures, attacking a whole boatload of tech companies with its latest Guide to Greener Electronics.

The guide rates electronics manufacturers based largely on their commitment to recycling old gear and reducing the use of toxic compounds in new stuff. This is the first time Greenpeace has chosen to include Nintendo in the list, and it has ranked the Wii-maker dead last -- not because the motion-sensing abilities of the Wiimotes are powered by globs of toxic waste, but instead simply because the company doesn't provide any information about things such as what it's doing for recycling and when it plans to phase out the use of PVC.

Nintendo's competitor in the video game battle, Microsoft, is also new to the list and also scores low, though slightly better than Nintendo, thanks to having a plan for phasing out the use of PVC and other materials that result in the creation of toxic compounds. Sony, the third player in the current console war, scores much higher in the green rankings thanks largely to its acceptance of expired electronics from Japanese consumers for recycling.

We here at Switched find this ordering somewhat confusing. Sony's console, the PlayStation 3, is by far the most power hungry of the three, drawing 200-plus watts of electricity when playing games. Microsoft's Xbox 360 averages a somewhat more efficient 145 watts, while Nintendo's Wii uses just 15-20 watts, which is less than 10-percent of the power of Sony's machine! Yet Nintendo is ranked as the worst electronics maker on the planet? We think Greenpeace should care a little more about the pollution caused by power generation.

Top of the charts was Sony's celly spin-off Sony Ericsson, which has already phased out the use of PVC to a large extent, while most others are still just thinking about it.

From Greenpeace (via Engadget)

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