I've become obsessed with wanting to buy several things, instead of what I should be doing this time of year - being grateful and thoughtful and thinking about fun gifts for others!
A Microsoft Surface Tablet
I have a very old iPad that works fine that has a LTE card in it. For very little money a month, I can write and read anywhere I am without worrying about time limits on WiFi, security, or whatever else might be going on at the hotel lobby or coffee shop or bar where I'm sitting (these are common places for me to want to type something). The iPad though is mostly a consumption device, not really ready for prime time work. I know people disagree with this, but I have a very early iPad pro. It's a bit frustrating and annoying to try to use for putting together a big research document or essay. Blogging is ok with it. Anyway, it would be great to have the beautiful new OLED Surface with the 5g/LTE slot. This is very expensive though so I'm just sitting here looking at it on different tech websites and wondering when I will be able to get one. I have told myself I will get it when the iPad finally craps out, which won't be anytime soon.
Steam Deck 512GB
I have so many computer games I've collected over the years that it just seems reasonable at this point to have a way to play them when I'm not sitting in front of my computer. I've been thinking about this one for a long time. I was even in the preorder line, but got out of it. I'm glad that I did because now they have a better screen and a bit better specs. The alternative to this one is wait for the Linux based OS to go public/free and put it on a Pi or something, but that doesn't solve the portability issue. This one is the most likely one to happen.
A linux laptop
Not sure what happened to all my spare laptops around here, but they have all mostly died or stopped working. I do have one left that is an awkwardly large laptop that could serve this purpose, but I want a small one that is quick to boot up. The 17 inch old gaming laptop isn't the best choice for the linux box in my opinion. I'd like to get a very inexpensive laptop and just run linux on it for those times when I am fed up with Windows or when you need an inventional boost. There's something nice about changing desktop environments when you need some inspiration.