Mother’s Day Gift Guide

Spoil Mom with these affordable and easy-to-use gadgets she?ll love.

She gave birth to you, raised you, fed you, and watched all two hours of the horrible school play where you played Thomas Jefferson and ended up crying when you forgot your lines. (And even took you for ice cream afterward, remember?) After putting up with your childhood nonsense, Mom deserves something nice on the one day a year set aside to pay tribute to her infinite patience.

At the same time, if she’s a practical lady, she probably doesn’t want you dropping the big bucks this year, on her, either. For frugal sons and daughters, a custom card cooked up with HP Creative Studio, a nice note written by hand, and fresh-picked flowers should do the trick. If you’re a little less artistic, we’ve already rounded up scores of cool custom gift ideas you can order online. Or, if you’re a little more tech-savvy than her, you could also replace her desktop wallpaper, screensaver, or help clean up her computer. But for those looking to give Mom something in a bow with a bow on it, you can find plenty of inexpensive and useful gifts to spoil mom, too. After the Hot Wheels play set she got you when you turned six, it’s only fair.

For the active mom…

Panasonic Lumix DMC-FS7, $160

Picking a camera for Mom can be tough with all the choices out there, but we think Panasonic’s Lumix DMC-FS7 offers the perfect blend of style, function, small size, and price. Intelligent Auto mode makes it easy to capture 10-megapixel stills with minimal hassle, you can choose from pink, green, blue, silver and black to suit Mom’s tastes, and given how sturdy the super-slim metal case feels, your siblings will definitely think you dropped far more than $160 for it. You always were the favorite child.

For the sentimental mom…

Kodak Easyshare M820 Digital Picture Frame with Home Décor Kit, $130

You may not be overly fond of the pictures Mom has amassed of you wearing embarrassing neon clothes, frolicking around with your favorite toys, and the obligatory no-modesty-in-the-bathtub shot, but those are her favorite memories. So let her put them on display – all of them, instead of just a handful – in Kodak’s digital photo album, which will hold hundreds of photos after you equip it with a 2GB SD card for another $20. The thoughtful son or daughter will remember to preload it with photos, too, so Mom can simply plug and play.

For the musical mom…

iPod Nano 8GB, $149

You can find cheaper players, but hardly one prettier or easier to use than this, which less tech-savvy moms should appreciate. You can also personalize by picking her favorite color from the nine versions Apple offers, getting a personalized message engraved for free, and of course, picking out a few of her favorite albums and putting them on there for her.

For the mom with no sense of direction…

TomTom ONE 3rd Edition GPS, $80

While we recommend spending a little more for an easy-to-use MP3 player, we would slide to the opposite end of the price spectrum for a GPS system, unless Mom will really use all the advanced bells and whistles. This older TomTom is small, easy to take up and down, a snap to use, and best of all, heavily discounted. But it will get her around town – and across the country – just as effortlessly as many new units.

For the travelling mom…

Asus Eee 1000HE Netbook

Knowing it’s for mothers, we’re tempted to point toward HP’s gorgeous Mini 1000 Vivienne Tam edition, but if you’re mother is anything like the frugal coupon clippers we know and love, she would be ashamed you wasted hundreds of dollars for what amounts to a pretty paint job. Get Asus’ popular 1000HE instead, which also comes in a slew of pretty colors, offers even better specs, runs for over eight hours on one charge, and can be had for under $400.

For the mom who loves to cook…

Nintendo DS Lite bundled with Personal Trainer: Cooking, $150

Nintendo’s DS handheld gaming system isn’t just for whizzing around in go karts shooting turtle shells and finding the Phantom Hourglass, it can also be useful teaching tool with the right software. Personal Trainer: Cooking walks you through making gourmet meals using bright animated graphics, audio cues, and even built-in digital timers to make sure you cook your rice just right. The version of the DS Lite bundled with the software comes in a unique green color, and includes a free carrying case.

For the chatty mom…

Jawbone Aliph Gen 3, $130

Mom probably doesn’t want to look like an air traffic controller wearing an enormous Bluetooth headset with a boom mic, so get her a discrete, fashionable yet extremely functional headset instead. Aliph’s Jawbone 3 uses a specialized sensor that presses against a users jaw to isolate voice and block out noise better than pretty much any other Bluetooth headset on the market. The third generation comes in a host of subdued (black, platinum, brown) or trendy (lime, scarlet, yellow, lilac) colors, and fits better than previous models, too.

For the always-prepared mom…

Flip UltraHD, $200

Full-size camcorders definitely do an amazing job capturing life’s most precious moments in full 1080p HD, but they’re don’t do any good if they’re always locked up at home. Flip’s new UltraHD camcorder is light and inexpensive enough to go everywhere in a purse, and captures great-looking 720p footage that’s easy to move to PCs with the flip-out USB arm.

For the fashionable mom…

Nokia Intrigue 7205, $130 (with two-year Verizon contract)

Unless Mom really sends 50 texts a day, watches TV on her phone and Twitters her life to the world, she might be better off with a rock-solid clamshell phone, rather than a smartphone that will overwhelm her with features she doesn’t need. Nokia’s Intrigue is one of the best-looking folding designs we’ve seen in a while, and has all the essentials, including 2.0-megapixel camera, visual voicemail and Bluetooth.

For the mom with the not-so-green thumb…

EasyBloom Plant Sensor, $60

If mom raises droopy geraniums, tiny tomatoes and pathetic pumpkins, give her a hand with this high-tech gardening gadgets, which meters rainfall, sunlight, humidity and other factors in any given area to explain why certain plants work while others will fail. After letting it gather readings by poking it into the soil, she can plug it back into a computer and view a list of plant suggestions, as well as ways to improve conditions.