Top Gifts for Moms
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There's no doubt that moms do so much for us, including keeping us healthy as kids to giving the best advice well after we leave the nest. Most of us would be lost without them. This holiday season, let us help you find the perfect gift for the mom in your life.
Need more holiday inspiration? Check out some of our other gift guides: Best White Elephant Gifts for Under $35, Top Gifts Under $50, Top Tech Gifts Under $100, Top Home Gifts Under $100, and 10 Great Gifts for Coffee Lovers.
Go to Consumer Reports' Holiday Gift Guide for updates on deals, expert product reviews, insider tips on shopping, and much more.
Ninja Specialty CM401
A more affordable take on Ninja's Coffee Bar brewers, the Ninja Specialty CM401 is a terrific all-in-one machine, capable of brewing hot and iced coffee, lattes, macchiatos, and other specialty brews. In our tests it receives an Excellent rating for brew performance, and its glass carafe handles with ease. This model is also packed with features, including an over-ice brew mode for iced coffee, a built-in milk frother, brew-strength control, and brew-size adjustment for everything from travel mugs to full carafes. It's one of the most versatile coffee makers we’ve tested.
For more options: Best Drip Coffee Makers From Consumer Reports' Tests
Cuisinart Supreme Grind Automatic Burr Mill DBM-8
This Cuisinart coffee grinder earns a Good rating in overall performance and is a breeze to clean, earning an Excellent score in that regard. It also features dial, button, and slider controls, and can hold about 8 ounces of coffee. At this price, it's a solid pick for turning out a tasty cup of joe.
For more options: Best and Worst Burr Coffee Grinders
Farberware HF-919B
Its relatively good price and solid performance make the Farberware HF-919B air fryer a CR Best Buy. It’s among the quietest of the air fryers we’ve tested, earning an Excellent rating in our noise tests. (You can actually hear the mechanical timer ticking over the fan noise.) The dials are fairly easy to read and use, but the nooks and crannies of the food basket make it tough to clean. The basket’s measured capacity is 3.2 quarts. The two-year warranty is longer than the ones for most of the models we've tested.
For more options: Best Air Fryers of 2020
Vitamix 5200
The Vitamix 5200 scores top marks in our tests for making icy drinks, puréeing soup, and crushing ice. It’s also one of the few models we've tested that makes hot soup from raw ingredients, using just the friction from the blades to heat things up. Vitamix beats the competition in terms of owner satisfaction, too, earning an Excellent rating for that and for predicted reliability. Yes, you’ll pay a premium for this blender—it’s one of the most expensive we've tested—but you’re getting a hardworking machine that can make smoothies and more on a daily basis. Plus, it comes with a seven-year warranty.
For more options: Best Blenders for Making Smoothies
Hilti SFD 2-A
This unique drill falls in our light-duty category because of the limitations of its fixed ¼-inch chuck. That’s not a problem, though, if you’re drilling small holes. Plus, the Hilti SFD 2-A goes for half the price of many cordless drills with similar capabilities while still being reasonably powerful. A built-in LED light helps illuminate your workspace, and the drill’s modest 2.2-pound weight minimizes strain and fatigue, earning it an Excellent rating for handling. One of the biggest selling points is perhaps the 20-year warranty, which goes far beyond the standard three years for cordless drills. It comes with two 2.6-amp-hour batteries, a belt clip, and a soft-sided case.
For more options: Best Cordless Drills
Canon EOS M50 w/EF-M 15-45mm IS STM
CR’s testers found this economical Canon easy to use. Its rubber grip feels good in your hand and both the viewfinder and the pivoting LCD screen look great. Its sharp lens and stellar image stabilization make it easy to take sharp photos and videos. The EOS M50's flash performance is relatively weak, so if that's a priority you might want to consider other mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras, or just buy an external flash. Canon's mirrorless cameras also get top marks in predicted reliability.
For more options, check our buying guide and ratings for digital cameras.
Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700
The Bose Smart Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 are the long-awaited successor to the company’s flagship QuietComfort 35 Series II headphones (which are usually at least $100 cheaper). The two models are almost identical in performance: Both deliver superb sound quality and noise cancellation. But the Bose 700 earphones have a much slimmer profile when folded up, and they have a few updated elements, including more integration with digital assistants, touch controls, and sensors for Bose’s “augmented reality” apps. Bose has kept some of the best-loved features from its older models as well, such as adjustable levels of noise cancellation, a monitoring mode to let in sound from your environment, and an advertised 20-hour battery life.
For more options: Best Noise-Canceling Headphones to Buy Right Now
Sony WF-1000XM3
The 1000XM3 headphones are a popular noise-canceling model from Sony with a true wireless design, meaning there’s no cable connecting the earpieces. They get solid marks in our ratings for audio quality and blocking out sound. They have touch controls, adjustable levels of noise cancellation, a generous battery life, and a slew of other features. They aren’t our No. 1 noise-canceling pick, but at this price they’re a great value.
For more options: Best Wireless Headphones
Jabra Move Style Edition
The Jabra Move Style Edition, an on-ear Bluetooth model with a sleek appearance and better-than-average sound quality, comes with convenient features, like controls for calls, playback, and volume, and the option to forgo Bluetooth and use the detachable audio cable included with your purchase. The headphones have a closed, isolating design that will keep some noise from leaking in or out during a listening session. The headphones have an advertised 14-hour battery life, more than enough to get you through a day of listening.
For more options: Best Headphones Under $100
Microsoft Surface Pro 7 (Core i5)
This 12.3-inch 2-in-1 detachable laptop shows fast speeds in our tests and is suitable for complex school or office work. But you might notice a lag when media editing or playing video games. The display is bright, has wide viewing angles, and shows lifelike colors. Battery life is reasonably long at 10.5 hrs in web-browsing tests, and at just 2.4 pounds, it's lighter than typical laptops in this size category. And of course, there’s something to be said for being able to remove the keyboard to use like a tablet.
For more options: Best Laptops
Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus
The Amazon Fire HD 8 Plus has an 8-inch screen that makes it a solid choice for those who enjoy reading or watching movies. It has 3GB memory and is available with 32GB storage, but you can also add a micro-SD memory card for more storage. Battery life is impressive. But our tests found that it's slower than most other tablets we've tested, though it's acceptable for most everyday tasks, such as web browsing or email.
For more options: Best Tablets
Apple Watch SE (40mm) GPS
The new Apple Watch SE packs in a vast majority of features most people desire in a smartwatch and leaves out the higher-end tech and add-ons that sometimes go unused. And in exchange, the price is lower than for other Apple Watches. The SE comes in two sizes (40mm or 44mm) and two hardware configurations (GPS-only or GPS plus cellular). The bands are interchangeable, too.
For more options, check our buying guide and ratings for smartwatches.
Google Home Max
The Google Home Max was the first really good-sounding smart speaker, and it remains the best-sounding model on the market. Our testers like its solid bass and clean midrange—that all-important sonic window where most instruments and vocals lie—along with plenty of volume. The Home Max’s smart functions work seamlessly with Google Assistant. It doesn’t have the same number of skills as Amazon’s Alexa and doesn’t work with as many smart home devices, but some users find Google’s interface to be more user-friendly. You can also integrate several Home Max speakers throughout your home, either singly or in stereo pairs, and supplement them with smaller and less expensive Google Home speakers or other speakers with Chromecast capability as part of a multiroom system.
For more options: Best Smart Speakers
Edifier S1000MKII
It's been a stressful year, so why not give mom something that can help her drop out and tune in? The Edifier S1000MKII powered Bluetooth speaker provides top-notch sound with tight and musical bass and a midrange that lets her hear every nuance of her favorite singer's best performance. And for a very reasonable price of about $350, mom gets a stereo pair of Edifiers, which allows the speakers to create a convincing illusion that the musicians are right there in the room with her.
For more options: Best Wireless Speakers Under $200
Did your mom miss the great sourdough bake-off of 2020? Help her rise to the occasion with her very own bread maker. At 9 inches wide and 13 inch deep, the Zojirushi Home Bakery Maestro BB-SSC10WZ has a relatively small countertop footprint. The control panel on the front is angled for easy viewing and displays each step, such as “knead” and “rest,” so you don’t have to guess where it is in the process. This bread maker mixes the batter well and has an automatic ingredient dispenser for adding nuts or dried fruit at the right time in a cycle.
For more options: Bread Maker Reviews
Give the gift of less toilet paper anxiety: The Tushy Classic bidet attachment has a dial to adjust the water pressure, as well as three settings fore and aft. A few users in our recent study of bidets said it was easier to move themselves rather than adjust the nozzle, so if your intended recipient has limited mobility, this bidet may not be a great option. Some users found that it shifted a bit under the toilet seat. And one said the water pressure could be quite strong: “A 2 or 3 on the dial will give you a blast!” Most users found the Classic easy to install and had no trouble figuring out the water-pressure dial or nozzle adjustment switch.
For more options: Bidet Review: 'I Have Less Toilet Paper Anxiety'
