Digital Trends

Tech enthusiasts are a quirky and cynical bunch – which is why shopping for them is an agonizing affair that rarely ends well. In general, most prefer to spend their time deriding the failure of products (Exhibits A and B, guilty as charged) rather than actually lusting over them. (With the possible exception of Apple fans, who will fawn over anything Steve Jobs kicks down to them from his shiny white plastic throne.) That’s why, though we’ve given advice on techie gifts to get for family, friends and coworkers, we wouldn’t touch “gifts for nerds” with a ten-foot Ethernet cable. Instead, we’ve merely set out to help you avoid the angst of your local lovable technophile with a few gifts that he or she will most definitely not appreciate, despite your best intentions.

Digital Picture Frames

Yes, we included one on our list of gifts for family, but keep in mind that your garden variety nerd cannot stand such a blatantly consumer-friendly device marketed to moms and dads. They may have been high-tech status symbols at one point, but now it’s like giving a Crayola watercolor set to an artist.