If we were all billionaires, Christmas would look very different. While we would love to buy our loved ones diamond chess sets and trips to the Moon, our sights are set on more modest gifts of future technology. But who says we can't dream? So this year we've picked our favourite 'money is no object gifts'… and some more realistic options.
1. Your own personal flying vehicle
Expensive:
Let’s be honest, cars are old news. Sure, you could live the super-rich life in a new Tesla or a classic supercar, but they’re too familiar to really turn heads.
What would turn heads (or rather, tilt them upwards) is your own personal eVTOL (electric vertical take-off and landing) aircraft, such as the Jetson ONE. It’s an impressive feat of engineering, even if it does look like a gaming chair with propellers.
And you don’t actually need a pilot’s licence to fly it, since an onboard computer is doing a lot of the heavy lifting, aviation-wise. It’s classed as an ultralight aircraft, however, so it can only be used recreationally. That means only flying it in your vast back garden, not over public areas.
Jetson One, Buy now for £77,300
Affordable:
As much fun as a personal eVTOL would be, there are cheaper and safer ways to take to the skies. In recent years, drone technology has advanced significantly, driven heavily by DJI.
One of the latest drones from the company is the Avata. A first-person-view drone, it comes with a pair of goggles that allow you to see Avata’s view of the world. It can speed through the sky, flip, dive and move in a way that birds would envy.
Sure, you’re not actually flying, but that doesn’t diminish the thrill on offer here. Prices start at £499 and even at its most expensive (£1,249), it’s a bargain compared to the Jetson ONE.
2. A real-life football manager dream
Expensive:
Buying a football team is the trendy thing to do, if the likes of David Beckham and Ryan Reynolds are
anything to go by. So why not join in the fun?
Major teams can cost billions, but smaller teams can make great ‘stocking fillers’. And nothing says ‘Merry Christmas’ quite like the stress of becoming the new manager of a rapidly declining football club facing the threat of relegation. Buy a football team, from £500,000.
Football teams, Buy now from £500,000
Affordable:
If you’re looking for a less costly, more relaxed football management experience, try FC 24. The football
game is available on all major consoles and offers the latest in graphics and gameplay. Owning one real club costs a fortune; owning all the clubs in digital form costs just £69.99, plus there are no pundits,
agents or fans to deal with.
3. An out-of-this-world wallet
Expensive:
Bejeti’s Planetesimal wallet is made from metal extracted from a meteorite and costs $29,500. Can it hold a lot? Not really – there’s only room for three cards. Is it light? No, it’s all metal.
Will it make you look like an evil CEO stealing money from the poor in a dystopian cyberpunk future? Actually, yes. And just imagine the kudos you’ll get from the cashier when you whip this out in Tesco.
Bejeti Planetesimal, Buy now for £23,000
Affordable:
At £85, the Bellroy Hide & Seek wallet is still expensive, but not quite meteorite-metal expensive. The luxury leather wallet has RFID protection, space for up to 12 cards and a hidden section for your notes and coins.
The Bellroy Hide & Seek might not be made of materials from outer space, or be one of a limited edition collection, but it’s a nice, practical wallet at a price that’s not out of this world.
Bellroy Hide and Seek, Buy now for £85
4. An extravagant TV
Expensive:
Surround sound, 4K, Ultra-HD… these things don’t impress people now. For a TV that says opulence, you need spectacle, and B&O has you covered with the Beovision Harmony.
It comes in a host of sizes, although anything below the maximum 97-inch option just isn’t going to be extravagant enough. But sheer size isn’t this TV’s only extravagance. It also reveals itself from behind its grilled wooden panel… every single time you want to use it.
The panels split and rotate apart, almost like a pair of theatre curtains, to reveal the headline act for your evening’s viewing. (Even if it’s I’m a Celebrity…) That wooden panel also contains a pair of speakers blasting B&O’s signature sound quality. Needless to say, such theatrical levels of extravagance come at a hefty price.
B&O Beovision Harmony, Buy now for £50,450
Affordable:
B&O’s Beovision is more art project than TV, pushing the boundaries of both TV design and your wallet. But few of us really need to spend that much money for a unique TV experience.
If you want a TV that’s just as clever, but won’t leave you feeling like you’ve been robbed blind, consider the Sky Glass. It’s stylish, it’s sleek, it has its own built-in soundbar and it’s voice-activated. It also doesn’t cost the Earth, starting at £699.
With all the money you’re saving, you can even add Sky Live – an interactive camera for video calls, workouts and games. The Glass might not have the theatrics of the Beovision, but it does offer all of the same features (and more) for tens of thousands less.
5. A life worthy of turning into a film
Expensive:
It’s not something you can say out loud, but we wouldn’t judge you if the thought had ever crossed your mind “my life would make a great movie”.
Of course, you can’t commission the film yourself, that’s not a good look, instead subtly drop the hint to a loved one that for Christmas you’d love a full-feature length movie about your life and impact, that’s much more subtle. For just £121,000, Narrative Trust will interview your friends and family, delve into your life, history and work, creating a movie with historical footage, music and interviews.
Narrative Trust have made films and written books for some of the most important people in the world, telling their heart-wrenching or empowering stories on film, complete with loving interviews about their impact on the world… no pressure though, we’re sure your film will be just as good!
Narrative Trust Film, Buy now for $150,000 (roughly £121,000)
Affordable:
You don’t need to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds on a film about a loved one’s life to indulge in some nostalgia. In fact, for a lot of people, that might feel somewhat intense.
For a more down-to-Earth and easier option, a nice scrapbook will both feel more personal and won’t make someone feel as guilty as buying them a £100,000 movie while you just got them socks. While there are plenty of nice physical scrapbooks you can buy these days, there are equally digital options, like Amazon Echo devices, or digital frames that will cycle through photos.
Futuristic or old school, both options offer a more personal feel as you source through images to use, instead of out-sourcing the entire process to a film and documentarian company.
Amazon Echo Show 8, Buy now for £59.99
6. A real-life transformer
Expensive:
What do you get the person whose garage is filled with Ferraris and Lamborghinis? Boring friends will tell you to get them another supercar.
Cooler friends will tell you to get them a $3 million, 4.5m (14.8ft) tall robot that transforms into a car. It can be piloted via a cockpit crammed with controls and displays, and its two giant arms can lift, crush and move massive objects. So it’d probably be useful in the garden.
Tsubame Archax, Buy now for £3 million
Affordable:
Handbag dogs are so last year. This year its all about palm-sized cyber hounds, such as Petoi’s Bittle robot dog. Well, not exactly. Although Bittle would make a great gift for anyone with a budding interest in robotics. They can build the robodog, then program it to do flips and tricks while learning the basics of coding. Better still, it’s a dog that you’ll never have to house train.
Petio Bittle, Buy now for £229
7. Jet fuel coffee
Expensive:
Do you know someone who likes their coffee to be as strong as jet fuel? If you do, and you’ve got a spare £17,000 lying around, you can get them a jet engine to make it with.
Okay, so it isn’t actually a real jet engine, but a scaled-down replica made of aviation-grade aluminium. It even has spinning blades. It doesn’t make any speciality coffees, though. Or grind coffee beans, or froth milk. But if you’re looking for a gift for someone who favours form over function.
Aviatore veloce Turbojet, Buy now for £17,808
Affordable:
If your coffee-drinking friend prefers regular coffee (without the jet engine flourish), there are plenty of coffee machines to choose from.
The De’Longhi Stilosa machine costs £126, and not only will it brew coffee, but it also froths milk (so cappuccinos are back on the cards). Plus, it comes in a variety of colours to match your kitchen décor. Is it as interesting as a jet engine? No, of course not, but it’s certainly a whole lot more practical, not to mention much easier to wrap.
De'Longhi Stilosa, Buy now for £126
8. A quarter past rich
Expensive:
Nothing says you’ve got money to burn like a watch you can’t read and costs as much as a house. The see-through casing on the Girard-Perregaux Quasar Azure Tourbillon may show all the intricately crafted inner-workings, but it also makes it extremely hard to tell the time.
But then this timepiece isn’t so much about making sure you’re not late, as making it clear to everyone that you’re considerably richer than them.
Girard-Perregaux Quasar Azure Tourbillon, Buy now for £289,000
Affordable:
What CASIO lacks in luxury, it makes up for in affordability and, in this case, retro styling. The A163WA-1QES offers nostalgia for a time that feels far less chaotic. When stacked up against the Tourbillon, it’s hard to see where the CASIO loses out. Sure, it might not be as fancy, but it’s £288,967 cheaper, has a backlight, an alarm, a stopwatch, and it won’t cause you to lose your mind if you misplace it.
Casio A163WA-1QES, Buy now for £32.90
9. A trip to the Moon
Expensive:
Sure, you could rent a nice villa in Europe or splash out on a yacht, but when you’ve got billions in the bank you really need to up the ante when it comes to holidays. So how about a trip to the Moon? Yes, it’ll cost north of £150 million and you won’t actually land on the Moon, just fly around it, but the trip will put you in a very elite club. And that’s priceless.
Affordable:
If you decide £150 million could be better spent elsewhere, you can still experience the Moon with a good book. Granted, a book isn’t quite as adventurous, but there are benefits here. Besides the much more affordable price, it won’t require you to be strapped to a giant firework.
The Sky at Night: Book of the Moon, Buy now for £12 from Amazon
10. A chess set worthy of a king and queen
Expensive:
Why not lavish the chess enthusiast in your life with the world’s most expensive set? “[The Pearl Royale’s] decadence is symbolic of how I value the game itself,” says its maker Colin Burn. “I love how chess brings people together from all societies, cultures and backgrounds.” (An interesting view given how few people can actually afford this set.)
Assuming, the board accounts for about $2 million of its value, that would make the 32 pieces worth around $62,500 each, so for goodness sake, don’t lose. There are so many diamonds that anyone who sees the pieces will be immediately blinded by your wealth.
The Pearl Royale, Buy now for £3,100,000
Affordable:
You don’t need to plaster a chess board in diamonds to make it cherishable. In fact, beautiful wooden chess sets can be bought for less than £100, leaving you with a couple of million to spend on… other things. This classic set from established chess designer Regency Chess can be folded up and taken wherever you feel like having a game.
Each piece is hand-crafted and finished with a clear polish, for an understated and refined look. Is it the world’s most expensive chess set? It’s not even close, but it comes with extra kings and queens in case you happen to lose one – talk about good value.
Regency Chess Set, Buy now for £99
11. A euphoric headphone experience
Expensive:
The Sennheiser HE-1 is not for the average person, because what normal person drops £54,000 on a pair of headphones, let alone a pair that can’t be separated from their gigantic amplifier setup! No, these are designed for the person who has three Ferraris, two mansions, a jet, and a compulsion to keep buying expensive things.
Sure, they are probably the best headphones you will ever hear, but our ability to experience music only goes so far, and it stops long before £54,000. Your money here is going on spectacle, with tubes that rise out of the amplifier, and a solid marble base.
It’s a conversation piece, forcing your friends and families to sit down and listen to your favourite songs, asking them if they can notice the highs, mids and lows.
Sennheiser HE-1, Buy now for £54,000
Affordable:
The Sony WH-1000XM5 don’t come with a marble base or utilise all the Hi-Fi strategies to bleed out the tiny differences in audio. There are no weird futuristic tubes rising out of it and no real bragging rights about unmatched audio that no one can really notice.
No, these are simply a great pair of headphones, some of the highest-rated headphones around right now in fact. They are Bluetooth so you’re not tied to the same spot to listen to them, they offer market-leading noise cancellation, and with a 30-hour battery life, can survive for a couple of days, blocking out the world on flights, morning commutes and when the entire family is over for Christmas.
Sony WH-1000XM5, Buy now for £279
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