Top 10 Business Gifts

Apple's iPhone is just cool. The multi-touch display truly lets your fingers do the walking to make calls, listen to voicemail, zoom in or out on a piece of a web page, flip through photos, play a tune, take a picture – the iPhone is an impressive multifunction work and entertainment centre. Will it be available in Canada soon? Here's hoping.

If you work on the go, why not treat yourself to a tablet PC? A tablet PC is a great business gift because it gives you the flexibility and mobility to truly work anywhere. HP’s Pavilion tx1320us, for instance, has a 12.1 inch screen that twists 180° for presentations and DVD playback while traveling - and folds flat for convenience. And the touch screen lets you capture drawings and short handwritten notes and convert them to text (2GHz AMD Turion™ 64 X2 Dual-Core processor and Microsoft Vista Home Premium operating system).

Microsoft Office is my workhorse of choice because of its combination of features and applications integration; I find it really useful to be able to keep a database of contacts within my email application (Outlook with Business Contact Manager) or import data from a database (Access) into a spreadsheet format (Excel). The new features in the 2007 Professional version make it even easier to do more faster making it a great pick for a business gift. This suite includes Excel 2007, Outlook with Business Contact Manager, PowerPoint 2007, Word 2007, Access 2007, Publisher 2007 and Accounting Express 2007.

A digital recorder is a great business gift for professionals who need to take a lot of notes. This digital voice recorder delivers in terms of recording, sound quality and storage capacity. With 256 MB flash memory, the WS-300M voice recorder can store documents and images as well as audio. As for recording, it boasts of up to 68 hours of recording time (or about 66 songs) with features such as index marking and a variety of playback modes. And the sound? Superior.

If you have to make presentations during the course of your business, you have the perfect excuse to buy an LCD projector as a business gift. My choice is Epson's PowerLite 77c LCD projector. It weighs only 6 lbs. but puts out 2200 lumens and has all the other features needed for quality presentations, including XGA resolution (1024 x 768), a 400:1 contrast ratio, a full featured remote control and auto keystone correct. Features, price and a comparatively long life lamp (3000 hours in high brightness mode) make this LCD projector a deal.

This could truly be the business gift that goes on giving, an external hard drive so you back up your important data or even your entire system quickly and easily. No more messing around with CDs or tape drives. With four ports, USB 2.0, FireWire 400, FireWire 800, and eSATA, this 500 GB external hard drive from LaCie has true universal connectivity. It also has a 16MB cache, advanced 3-level power management, comes with professional backup software and has a design that allows it to stand upright, stack or be rack-mounted. Treat yourself!

Upgrading your printer is another great business gift idea. I like multifunction printers anyway because they save space, but this one truly seems to do it all. It prints (at up to 21 ppm in both black/white and color). It scans (with an optical scan resolution of 1200 x 2400 dpi). It faxes. It copies in both color and black and white. And it comes network ready with auto-duplexing for both printing and scanning! A 50 sheet-capacity ADF and a 300 sheet paper capacity tray are included; there's an optional 500 sheet tray addition.

Desk bound? Then an ergonomic office chair is the perfect business gift. A chair specially designed to suit your body, your workplace, and the tasks you perform there will improve your productivity and your health. If you spend a lot of time sitting, this is a great investment. My choice, an ergomonic office chair from Humanscale, provides "optimal support in every seated position without knobs, locks or levers".

A conference phone is a business gift that you'll appreciate every working day. Polycom's SoundStation conference phone adapts automatically to changing room and telephone line conditions to permit natural, full-duplex (two-way) conversations for rooms up to 20 x 24 feet without clipping or distortion. Speak in a normal voice and be heard clearly up to ten feet away.

If you spend a lot of time staring at a computer screen, you won't believe the difference a bigger computer monitor will make to your working life. A big monitor will do big things for your comfort, helping you avoid eyestrain and improving your productivity. And big monitors don't cost big bucks anymore. This 22 inch widescreen LCD monitor from Acer is less than $300 USD. With 1680 X 1050 max resolution, a 700:1 contrast ratio and 300 cd/m² of brightness, would make a lovely business gift.