Father’s Day is coming up on Sunday, and in the gadgets section of our Father’s Day Gift Guide we’re focusing on stuff beyond the obvious choices like phones and iPads.

The Meteor Mic from Samson fits that criteria perfectly. It’s an incredible device that is chrome-plated and beautifully designed so that you can record great sound or use it as a speakerphone on services such as Skype. It looks like an old school mic, but it’s also portable as the three legs of the stand all fold up perfectly to make it easy to store in luggage or a briefcase.

Most importantly, the sound quality is so much better than what you’ll get from tiny mics or the mic built into computers. Features include:

– One of the largest condenser diaphragms (25mm) of any USB mic available to produce rich, CD quality recordings

– Fold-back leg design allows for the optimal positioning for any recording application

– A stereo 1/8-inch headphone output, no latency monitoring, and headphone volume knob give user complete control

– No drivers are required, allowing users to start recording right out of the box

It’s a great gadget for anyone and a great gift idea as well, so check it out online or at Best Buy.

As someone who grew up in the 80s, I miss the days of being able to carry around a boombox. Of course things got ridiculous as rappers carried around boomboxes as big as a house, but it was so easy back in the day to create a spontaneous party with a killer boombox.

Today, everyone is doing their own thing wearing their headphones with their iPhones or iPods. There’s nothing wrong with that of course, but it doesn’t lend itself to much socializing.

With the Eco Terra Boombox you get the best of both worlds as you can slide your phone or iPod into the boombox and share your music with friends. It’s the perfect gadget to take with you as you’re tailgating, hanging by the pool or anything else you might want to do with friends. It’s so easy to use and produces good sound.

It’s also 100% waterproof so you don’t have to worry about water splashing on it and ruining your phone. The internal waterproof casing houses your music player or smartphone, as well as some extra cash, credit cards, car key or driver’s license. The outside poly-carbonate shell with rubberized impact bumpers, fortifies your device and the boombox’s two 3” full-range forward firing speakers. Eco Terra also floats and is fully submersible. If you drop it into water the case will always rotate to point the speakers up! Pretty cool.

With Father’s Day around the corner you should check this out for the dad who misses his boombox but also loves his MP3 player.

In today’s world, you always have a need for more storage, and as we start to organize photos and videos in digital format, we need ways to back up and protect our data.

Toshiba has introduced a new series of Canvio 3.0 hard drives that meet these needs. They offer blazing-fast transfer speeds and pre-loaded backup software, and they are cloud-backup capable. The units offer a variety of storage capacity and we tested the one terabyte model.

One of the main characteristics of these devices is the ability to sync with the cloud. The Canvio 3.0 is pre-loaded with Windows™-based NTI® BackupNow EZ™ software that provides step-by-step and fully-customizable backup capabilities to the cloud and to the drive. Users create a cloud account with NTI® BackupNow EZ™ where they can backup specific folders, certain file types, and conduct a complete system backup to the Canvio 3.0. The backup software also scans the user’s system and files and recommends which files to backup to cloud-based or on-device storage.

The Canvio family now includes the support of USB 3.0, enabling Canvio users to take advantage of the faster data transfer speed of USB 3.0-enabled devices. We were impressed with the speed when we tested it out.

Some advanced features include complete password protection with up to 256-bit data encryption to prevent unauthorized access to data and an on-screen Drive Space Alert monitor that sends an alert when storage space is running low. The internal Shock Sensor and Ramp Loading Technology protect the drive during daily movement from a pocket, desk, bag, or beyond so you can feel comfortable carrying this around. It’s amazing how small these devices have become and how much you can store in a portable device.

The design of the unit is very slick and sturdy with rounded rectangular form factor and sleek high gloss finish. It’s also easy to grip it on the sides. It’s available in black, white, silver, red, green, and blue3.

This makes a great gift for anyone on your list, both techies who will appreciate the advanced features and others who need a simple way to protect their photos and home videos.

Check out our Holiday Gift Guide for more gift ideas.

Wireless access to the Internet has become a priority for both personal use and business use. But when you’re traveling, Internet access often requires a cable Ethernet hookup, which means you can only get access through the one hooked up PC. This makes it impossible to get online with other gadgets like iPads or other PCs used by friends or coworkers unless the devices have 3G capability.

These problems can be solved by the Wireless Dual-Band Travel Router from Belkin. Hook this device up using the cable hookup, and then all your PCs and other gadgets can use this personal hotspot to get online. So basically you pay for one online hookup and get to use multiple devices. It’s pretty small so it’s easy to pack, it comes with a handy carrying case and has high dual-band performance.

With the holidays around the corner, this device could be a great stocking stuffer for the personal on your list who loves gadgets and loves to travel. Check out our Holiday Gift Guide for more gift ideas.

In a world dominated by gadgets, we’re always looking for power. There’s nothing worse than losing a charge in your phone when you really need it.

So we all have car chargers, but now with iPads and other gadgets, we sometimes need more than one charger.

The USB Twin Tablet Charging Kit from Qmadix is a handy tool as it lets you charge two items at the same time through a USB cable. With this dual charger, you and your passenger can both charge your phones at the same time, or you can charge your phone and iPad at the same time. The unit comes with the dual charger and one USB cable for Apple products. It’s a great stocking stuffer if you’re looking for holiday gifts.