These Are 2023's Best Tech Gadgets Under $200

The end of the 2023 holiday shopping season is upon us, and if you've been putting off your gift purchases, you need to act now. Thankfully, there are still some good deals to be had, including on various tech products, and even with a relatively limited budget — at least by techie standards — of $200 per item, there's a lot of good value.

We've reviewed a lot of products this year here at SlashGear. While some are on the more expensive side, from flagship phones to automobiles, we've reviewed plenty of more affordable products as well — a few of which received our SlashGear Editor's Choice and SlashGear Select seals of approval. Based on what we've reviewed this year and given high ratings, along with what fits the criteria of retailing at $200 or less, let's take a look at some of the best tech gifts you can buy without breaking the bank too much.

When it comes to value, whether at retail price or on sale, the stocking stuffer-sized Amazon Fire TV Stick series is hard to beat for any of its four models. This is particularly true of the top model, the second-generation Fire TV Stick 4K Max, which retails for $59.99 but is often on sale for $44.99. It's such a good value that we named it a SlashGear Select pick for 2023 in our Fire TV Stick 4K Max review in October.

The small package contains everything you need, including an HDMI extender cable to help with Wi-Fi reception and prevent overheating. The streaming stick itself ticks all of the boxes you'd want in such a device, particularly at a budget price: enough storage (16GB) for plenty of streaming apps, Dolby Atmos audio decoding, support for all of the major competing HDR standards (Dolby Vision, HDR10/HDR10+, and HLG), Wi-Fi 6E networking, and 2GB RAM for a snappy, responsive user interface. It also adds a few Amazon-specific touches like the Alexa Voice Remote, the Amazon Luma cloud gaming service — Amazon's Luna Controller will set you back another $49.99 — and the ability to watch your home security camera in picture-in-picture mode while streaming your favorite shows.

"It'll give you plenty of space for most (possibly all) of the apps you're likely to need, setup is relatively painless, and as gimmicky as it might seem at first the voice command functions are incredibly useful," concluded our review.

If you're eyeing a high-quality Bluetooth speaker for whoever you're shopping for, then you need to seriously consider Anker's Soundcore Motion X500. It retails for $169.99 at Anker's website and Amazon store and is sometimes available for $129.99 on sale or with a checkbox coupon on the latter. Billed by Anker as "The World's Most Portable Spatial Audio Speaker," our Soundcore Motion X500 review here at SlashGear gave it a nine out of 10 score and our Editor's Choice endorsement.

With 40W of output power, support for hi-res Bluetooth audio, spatial audio, a mobile app that adds features like a full equalizer, good battery life, IPX7 water resistance, and what our review described as "a surprising amount of bass from something so small," it ticks the boxes for the most desirable features in a portable Bluetooth speaker. And those 40 watts of power? They're noticeable. "There are a few audio devices on the market that seem somewhat diminutive but manage to pack a surprising punch," notes our review. "Soundcore's X500 is a fully paid-up member of that exclusive club. If you've moved past the stage of life where you're determined to give yourself hearing damage, half volume is enough to be considered 'loud' in a fairly large room."

Anker's increasing push into the portable audio space has been a pleasant surprise, with its speakers and headphones delivering impressive value. So if you've got a limit of $200, then it's hard to beat the Soundcore X500, and depending on when you buy it, you might still have a fair amount of your budget left over.

Also among our SlashGear Select picks for 2023 is a particularly budget-priced security camera, the Tapo TP120 from TP-Link, a brand best known for its networking products. Shooting at 1080p full HD resolution while boasting IP66 water resistance  (officially, that means it's "Protected from high-pressure water jets from any direction") for just $39.99 retail and sometimes less on sale, it's going to be hard to find a better deal for anyone looking to build a new home monitoring system from scratch.

To get 30 days of cloud storage, you need to pay for the premium tier of the Tapo Care subscription service, but it's pretty reasonably priced, ranging from $3.49 per month or $34.99 billed annually for one camera to $11.99 per month or $119.99 billed annually for up to 10 cameras. That said, it's still a good value without a subscription.

"Perhaps the most impressive aspect of the Tapo C120 is just how many advanced features are available out of the box, even without paying for Tapo Care," notes our Tapo C120 review. "AI identification is built in, so it can identify people, pets, and several kinds of specific sounds (baby cries, pet noises, glass breaking, etc) on its own. These detection settings can also tie in with notifications, so for example you can tell the camera to only ping you if it detects a person." Even though the C120 is strictly a security camera and not a smart doorbell, it does transmit audio both ways between the camera and the app. So, if the app pings you about a delivery, communicating with the delivery driver is trivial.

Not bad for such a budget-priced camera.

It may not be as sexy as a smartphone or a tablet, but the basic e-ink Amazon Kindle is still unbeatable for reading. These days, every SKU in the Kindle line has the basic features that make it a wonderful reading experience, namely a high-resolution e-ink screen and a front light that lets you read it comfortably just about anywhere. If you've never actually used one, the main selling point is that e-ink screens look like actual paper, and, as a result, reading e-ink screens doesn't cause the same kind of eye strain that reading a backlit LCD screen does. The front light makes it so that you don't need to find the perfect lighting like you do with a paper book.

In our review of the latest base model Kindle, which retails for $99.99, we gave it an eight rating out of 10, giving high marks to the USB Type-C charging, long battery life, and 300dpi screen resolution. "There is a lot to like about this generation of Kindle," reads the conclusion of our review. "The higher resolution is great, and the USB-C port is long overdue. Combined, those are good reasons to upgrade, even if your old Kindle is only a few years old." If you don't already have a Kindle, get one now, and you'll have trouble going back to paper books.

As great as the classic e-ink Kindle is, though, it's not for everyone, and it doesn't do everything. If you're shopping for someone whom a full-scale tablet would be great for, then it's hard to beat the value of the 2023 version of the Amazon Fire HD 10, which retails for $139.99 but is sometimes on sale for as low as $89.99. In our Amazon Fire HD 10 review back in October, we gave it a seven out of 10, praising the value, including a microSD card slot to expand storage and the low price of many available accessories for the device. The build quality is also noticeably better than past Fire devices in this price range.

There are, of course, some caveats: While Amazon's Fire OS is technically a reskinned version of Android, you have to use Amazon's app store instead of the Google Play Store. While plenty of major apps are available in the Amazon App Store, there are also some major omissions, like YouTube and Evernote. Also, if you want to buy a version without Amazon's lock screen ads that subsidize the price — maybe you find them gauche in a gift — you have to pay $15 more.

As long as these things aren't an issue for who you're buying the tablet for, though, then it's a great deal. "If you're happy to treat a tablet like another decent portable screen for consuming media and games from a large portion of the most popular apps, the Fire HD 10 (2023) will treat you well in return — especially if you've already bought into Amazon Prime and/or other Amazon services," concludes our review. "It may not be an iPad, but it's a lot closer than the price would suggest."