‘Tis the season to treat your loved ones to holiday gifts, and if tech is on top of your list, the following are some of my top picks of the year. Ranging in price from $39 to $549, consider these gadgets and games for close family and friends – or, hey, why not yourself, as well?

Project yourself
One of the more exciting tablets to emerge in some time is Lenovo’s Yoga Tablet 2 Pro ($549.99), the first tablet with a built-in Pico projector that can beam an image onto a nearby wall or screen up to 50 inches. Built for entertainment buffs, this 13-inch tablet also features eight watts of JBL sound (and a subwoofer — also a first for a tablet) and offers up to an amazing 15 hours of battery life. The Android-powered tablet is powered by a fourth-generation Intel Atom processor and offers expandable memory via microSD cards.

Light as air
Weighing less than a pound and just 6.1 millimetres thin, iPad Air 2 (from $549.00) is the lightest and thinnest iPad to date. Seriously, it’s like holding a magazine. But that doesn’t mean it falls short in the performance department: the new A8x chip and M8 compressor deliver console-like game graphics in your hands. Now with Touch ID, so you can use your fingerprint instead of passcodes, Apple’s latest also adds better cameras, faster wireless (including support for cellular connectivity) and a new gold colour option. Battery life still tops 10 hours.

Stick it to me
Want a surefire way to avoid the “Are we there yet from the backseat?” While it looks like a regular USB thumbdrive, load up the SanDisk Connect Wireless Flash Drive ($59.99) with TV shows, movies, music and other files from your PC or Mac, and take it with you on a road trip. Now press a button and it’ll emit a Wi-Fi signal, allowing multiple people to stream content at the same time from the drive – such as three kids watching something different on their phone, tablet or laptop. A 32-gigabyte microSD card is included, but you can swap it out for one with greater capacity, if desired.

Stream dream
Turn your regular TV into a “smart one” – on the cheap. Google Chromecast ($39.00) is a small doohickey that lets you “cast” online video and music from your Android phone or tablet, iPhone or iPad, Mac or Windows laptop, or Chromebook computer. This thumb-sized device also includes some apps -- like YouTube, Netflix, Twitch and Songza – and includes 90 days of unlimited music from Google Play for free ($9.99/month after that). Users can also mirror what they see on their laptop or Android device, pushing it from the small screen to the big screen.

Game on!
Finally, a couple of great gaming bundles that give you more bang for your buck.

The limited edition PlayStation 4 destiny Bundle in Glacier White ($469.99) includes: the no. 1 selling console, Sony’s PlayStation 4, with a matching white controller; the hit Activision online sci-fi shooter, Destiny (rated “Teen”); a 500-gigabyte hard drive to store games and other media; and a 30-day trial to the PlayStation Plus service.

Alternatively, the Xbox One Assassin’s Creed Bundle ($399.99 without Kinect or $499.99 with) includes the 500-gigabyte version of the hot Xbox One video game console and two Assassin’s Creed game codes: the new Assassin's Creed Unity (which takes place in Paris during the French Revolution) and last year’s smash pirate-themed game Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag (with epic sea battles).Both games are rated “Mature” by the Entertainment Software Rating Board.