16 Game-Changing Tech Gifts Under $100: Overclock Their Life for Cheap

The Black Friday shopping season is upon us and many of us – including me – take this opportunity to buy things we want and need. For example, just the other day, I bought a charging station for my own living room, because it was on sale and I really want to be able to charge my laptop while I’m sitting on the couch. And I still am hoping to pick up a multi-color upgrade for my 3D printer this month.

However, we shouldn’t forget that the ostensible reason for all of these sales is that we’re meant to buy gifts for other people. Unless you’re very wealthy, chances are that you won’t be buying expensive gear such as laptops, TVs or game consoles for anyone but your children or partner. 

Fortunately, there are a lot of very affordable tech gifts you can give to the other people on your list: your friends, in-laws or even your boss. To help you choose, I’ve listed 15 tech gifts that cost less than $100 – in many cases less than $50 or even less than $25 – which anyone would love to receive. From power towers to SSD enclosures and super-comfy wrist rests, these are the best kinds of present – the type your giftee may not even have known that they needed.

 Anker A91C6 Charging Station ($35)

I bought one of these charging stations for myself, but they also make great gifts, because everyone needs more charging ports and more wattage per port. The Anker C91C6 has six ports: four USB-C and two USB Type-A ports. Two of the USB-C ports are capable of charging a laptop, emitting up to 100 watts of power between them. 

Most mainstream laptops need no more than 65 watts (more likely 55 or 45 watts during use) so the rest of the 100 watts can be used to charge phones, tablets, smart watches, etc. There are also three 3-prong outlets that can pass-through power to other devices in the home, even lamps. This is also a very small, lightweight tower so it won’t take up much desk space.

Cooler Master MK770 Keyboard ($71)

The right keyboard is better than any internal PC upgrade, because it upgrades the speed of the human operating the computer. If you have a keyboard that’s comfortable, that helps you type faster and more accurately, everything you work on will happen faster. You’ll have fewer typos, miss the mark fewer times in games and enter more words-per-minute from your brain to your PC.

The best typing keyboard I’ve ever used is Cooler Master’s MK770 with Kailh Box White switches. The combination of these lightweight, clicky mechanical switches and the flexible gasket mounting that holds them in place makes this a joy to type on. 

You can get the Cooler Master MK770 in a choice of color schemes: Macaron (shown above) is quite garish and goes for $89 right now. The gray version is just $71 on sale. Make sure the model you’re getting has the “soft click white” switches (Kailh Box White), not the Red Linear switches (unless you’re a gamer who prefers linear switches).

This keyboard isn’t just comfy to type on; it also has a compact, 96-percent layout and it works in wired or wireless modes. The wireless mode supports three Bluetooth profiles and a single, 2.4-GHz connection. So, in theory, you can toggle back and forth between your laptop, desktop, phone and other devices as needed. 

If your giftee doesn’t already have a mechanical keyboard, this is the ultimate gift for them.

 HyperX Wrist Rest with Cooling Gel  ($14)

Even the best keyboards are better with the right wrist rest. A good wrist rest props up your hands and keeps them comfy while you clack away at the keys. The best wrist rest gently cradles your joints while also keeping them cool.

There is no better wrist rest on the market than HyperX’s wrist rest with cooling gel. The gel inside has the perfect balance between firmness and flexibility while also remaining cool to the touch. A no-skid bottom keeps it from moving around. And the full-size version is just $14. Your giftee and their wrists will thank you.

 Sabrent EC-SNVE SSD Enclosure

Every PC builder or upgrader should own an SSD enclosure,connects a disk to any open USB port, for several reasons. First, if you have any old SSDs in a drawer somewhere, you can connect it to your PC and see what data is on it. 

Second, if you need to perform an upgrade of your C drive, you can easily take the new SSD, put it in the enclosure, connect it to a USB port and then clone the old drive to the new one. Finally, you can take an old SSD — perhaps the one you upgraded from — and turn it into an external drive.

The best SSD enclosure for most people is Sabrent’s EC-SNVE. For less than $20, this enclosure can accommodate any M.2 SSD, including SATA and NVMe drives of sizes 2280, 2260, 2242 and 2230 (Steam Deck) sizes. The enclosure is tool-free so you can easily swap drives in and out, no screwdriver required. 

 Passus Power Strip Tower ($22)

Everyone needs to have a power tower or many power towers for different rooms. A power tower is a vertical power strip that has plenty of outlets for plugging in PCs, laptop chargers or even appliances, along with USB ports for charging mobile devices. You put it on your desk and have all of your outlets in easy reach. These beat the pants off of traditional power strips which usually sit on the floor and take up a ton of horizontal real estate.

This Passus brand power tower has a few things going for it that many competitors do not. First, it has separate on/off switches for each side of the tower. So, if you want to turn off your monitors because they are power vampires and they are plugged into the same side of the cube, you can turn them off but leave other devices on.

Second, the Passus power tower has four USB Type-A charging ports and one Type-C port, which can deliver up to 18 watts of power. That’s good for newer, fast-charging phones and tablets. The tower also has a lengthy, 10-foot cord, 12 three-prong outlets, and surge protection.

 Logitech MX Master 3S ($89)

Logitech’s MX Master 3S is the best productivity mouse around, and right now it’s down to $89.This mouse not only has the perfect ergonomic shape for your giftee’s hand, but it also has five customizable buttons, a scroll wheel that toggles between ratcheted and smooth modes, and the ability to connect to up to three different devices via Bluetooth or Logitech’s proprietary dongle. 

My favorite feature, however, is the thumb wheel which I program to use as zoom in / out in Chrome browser. You can also use it for horizontal scrolling, volume control, or other fun purposes. Logitech’s Logi Options+ software gives you a ton of customization options for all the buttons and it also lets you change the sensor configuration so it goes as high as 8,000 DPI.

 Sabrent HB-BU10, 10-Port USB Hub ($44)

You can never have too many USB ports, particularly when you have a slew of peripherals to connect to your PC. By the time you plug in your webcam, external SSD, keyboard, mouse, security key, USB speaker and wireless headphone dongle,  you’re out of ports. And that’s before you attach a microcontroller such as a Raspberry Pi Pico or Arduino Uno board.

Sabrent’s HB-BU10 is the ultimate USB hub. It has ten different USB Type-A ports and each one has its own on/off switch. So, if you want to use your USB headset but disable your USB speakers,  you can turn the first one on and the second one off. If you need to reboot your Raspberry Pi Pico — a board which has no power button — you can simply toggle the power button on the USB hub. 

Your giftee will love this hub, because they probably don’t have anything like it.

Pinecil V2 Soldering Iron ($39)

Everyone should have a good soldering iron at home. Soldering is essential for electronics projects involving Raspberry Pi and Arduino. But it can also be used to fix frayed wires and other faulty tech.

The Pinecil V2 is a great soldering iron at an even better price. This lightweight, portable soldering icon can hit 350 degrees Celsius in just 20 seconds. It has a programmable menu you can use to set temperature profiles for different situations. And it gets power over USB-C so any plug that can deliver at 20V, which should include some laptop chargers, will do the job. 

iFixit Mako 64-Bit Screw Driver Kit ($39)

Your giftee probably already owns a screwdriver or two, but chances are that they don’t own an iFixit kit with 64 different bits for different types of screws. And if they happen to own one, they could probably use another.

iFixit kits have incredible quality with premium solid bits that magnetically attach to the screw head. And there are bits for everything from different sizes of Philips head to hex key heads. This kit has everything you need to tighten or unscrew just about anything.

 Arzopa Portable Monitor with Kickstand ($63)

Portable monitors are a game-changer and most people probably don’t even know that they need one. With a portable monitor, you can add a second screen to your laptop when you’re on a trip. You can also use a portable monitor to test a new desktop you’ve just built or connect it to single-board PC such as a Raspberry Pi you want to use for a maker project.

You can even use a portable monitor with a gaming console so you can take your XBox or PS5 with you on vacation. A good portable monitor is not just lightweight and easy-to-carry but also easy to mount. Most models, particularly cheap ones, require you to prop them up by folding their cardboard origami-style cases. These monitors flop over and take up a ton of depth on a table this way.

However, Arzopa’s monitor, now on sale for $63, has a built-in kickstand. It also has both HDMI and USB-C inputs. So you can connect it to a monitor that has USB-C alternate mode or to any HDMI-capable device. It’s 15.6 inches and boasts a 1920 x 1080 (full HD) resolution. 

YubiKey 5C Nano 2FA Key ($65)

Most services either require or benefit from having 2FA (two-factor authentication) enabled. But 2FA frequently relies on you having your phone next to your computer so you can receive a text or look at an authentication app. What if the phone is charging in another room or, worse still, out of juice.

I prefer using a security key as my second factor and many services — but not all — let you do this. So, for example, Google allows me to use a key as a second factor. So, after entering my password, I simply tap on my Yubikey Nano 5C and — boom — I’m logged in. The tricks is that you have to physically have the key.

There are a lot of security keys on the market, but Yubico makes the best quality ones. The Nano 5C is a tiny, USB-C key. It’s so small that you can stick it into a port on your laptop and just leave it there, even when you carry the laptop around and stick it in a bag. It’s not the cheapest key on the market, at $65, but if your giftee has a laptop, it’s the perfect choice. If they have a desktop, it’s also a solid choice.

 Elgato Stream Deck Neo ($99)

I recently started using this and I’m absolutely obsessed with it. The Elgato Stream Deck Neo is a peripheral with eight programmable buttons that show customizable icons on each key. You can assign anything you want to these buttons: website URLs, apps to open, macros or OS controls (ex: volume or mic control).

I use my Stream Deck Neo to get directly to my work email inbox, our editorial calendar spreadsheet, my schedule, Slack, Photoshop and some articles I’m updating multiple times a day (like our SSD live blog).

Your giftee probably doesn’t already have a Stream Deck or one of its competitors (Logitech, Loupedeck, and Razer make alternatives). So they’ll really appreciate the ability to set these kinds of custom keys for themselves. With 8 buttons and the ability to have multiple levels of navigation, the $99 Stream Deck Neo is the best choice for most people.

 SK hynix Tube T31 1TB External Drive ($59) 

You can never have enough external storage. You need external SSDs and USB Flash drives for carrying files around with you, for doing a clean install of Windows (or Linux) and for performing backups. 

The SK hynix Tube T31 is either a USB Flash drive or an external SSD, depending on how you want to look at it. It’s stick-shaped and pops right into a USB Type-A port, but its performance is quicker than most products that are marketed as USB Flash drives.

We reviewed the T31 and praised its incredible performance on PCMark 10 and DiskBench. I’ve personally used one of these for installing Windows on multiple systems. It makes a great gift.

SwissGear 1900 Scansmart Laptop Backpack ($71)

I own one of these backpacks in blue. If your giftee has a laptop and needs plenty of space to carry lots of stuff — perhaps a second laptop, a portable monitor or a tablet — the SwissGear 1900 ScanSmart is perfect. There are three large pockets, along with two front pockets and two side pockets.

As a “ScanSmart,” this bag is supposed to fold open so you can send it through the scanner at the airport without removing your laptop. I’m not sure how the airport security feels about you doing that so I don’t use my bag that way. What’s really important is there’s so much room in this thing. It’s also extremely durable and mine is in great shape, even after many years of use.

I keep my laptop, sometimes a second laptop, an umbrella, my lunch, and numerous toiletries with me at all times in this bag. And when I go to trade shows and I get handed numerous press kits and samples, I almost always have room to store them. Best of all, the SwissGear 1900 is only $71 in gray and $74 in blue. There’s also a red and black version for $65.

 Kica Jet Fan 2 Blower ($56)

Every computer geek has canned air they use for cleaning dust out of keyboard crevices and fan filters. But not only is canned air limited — it runs out eventually — but it’s terrible for the environment. Instead, you can buy your giftee an air duster like the KiCA Jet Fan 2, which charges up over USB and then blows dust away at breakneck speeds.

I should note here that there’s a small chance of static electricity generating when you blow inside a PC so be careful not to point it directly at PCBs. And tape or hold fans in place if you blow air on them so the fans don’t spin so fast they break their motors. 

In addition to blowing dust, the KiCA Jet Fan 2 can inflate a ball or air mattress. It’s even supposed to be powerful enough to blow snow off of a car, but it would probably have to be pretty light snow. 

Zitexun 23-Size Computer Screw Kit ($7)

Anyone who builds PCs at all has found themselves at a moment of desperation when they realize that they’re just one screw short. Maybe they’re missing a motherboard standoff. Maybe it’s the type of screw you use to bolt down an M.2 SSD. Or maybe it’s a fan screw.

This $7 kit has all the kinds of PC screws a person could need. So the next time a screw is missing, your giftee will have one in their time of need. There are even a pair of screwdrivers to help with the build process.

If any of these 16 gift ideas don’t quite appeal to you or you’re shopping for something for yourself, check out our list of the best PC Hardware and tech deals overall.