The Best Gifts for Gamers, From $25 to $680

Every couch needs a second pad that cost less than dinner, and PowerA wired controllers are the licensed answer: legitimate build quality, officially certified compatibility, and mappable back buttons that the price tier has no business including. As a gift it solves a real problem, because almost nobody buys themselves a spare controller until the moment a guest arrives and there is not one.

Wired is the feature here rather than the compromise. Nothing to charge, nothing to die mid-boss, and nothing to hunt for between couch cushions, because the cable always knows where it is. For kids, guests and backup duty those are exactly the right properties, and a flat battery has ended more sessions than any hardware fault. The honest limits are what you would expect at the price: the sticks and triggers are decent rather than exceptional, and a long cable has opinions about where the coffee table goes. Neither matters much for the job it is bought to do.

The BlackShark V2 X strips the esports formula to its essentials: 240 grams, earcups whose passive isolation blocks a noisy room, and TriForce drivers tuned so footsteps and callouts sit forward of cinematic boom. That tuning is the point rather than a side effect, and it is why it keeps being ranked the best isolating headset under $60.

For gifting, the wired 3.5mm connection is the quiet advantage. It works on every platform and every controller ever made, which removes the single biggest way a gaming gift goes wrong, and it needs no pairing, no dongle and no charging. The mic is unremarkable but communicates clearly, which is all a team chat asks. The build is functional plastic and the cable is not detachable, because at this price something has to give. It also shows up under $40 at every major sale, so it is worth timing if you are not in a hurry.

The G502 has outsold everything in gaming mice for a decade, and the G502 X is the refresh that fixed the old complaints. Thirteen programmable buttons, an infinite-scroll metal wheel, and a sculpted shape owners describe with genuine affection. PCWorld’s review landed on the same thing, calling it the best button configuration on a gaming mouse. Every ability bind, every macro and every shortcut has somewhere to live, which is why it suits MMOs and strategy games specifically.

The refresh matters more than a spec bump. Weight dropped meaningfully, and the switches went hybrid optical-mechanical, which makes them faster to actuate and immune to the double-click failure that eventually killed a lot of older G502s. Tom’s Hardware, testing the same Lightforce switches, described them as solid, premium clicks and reported none of the double-click trouble. That failure mode is the reason to buy the current one rather than a cheap older stock unit. Be clear about who it is wrong for: it is the wrong shape for claw-grip flick aiming and it is no featherweight, so a competitive shooter player wants something lighter. For everything else, including the workday after, it is the best all-round mouse at the price.

The HyperX Cloud III has been the default recommendation in this category for years and the reason has not changed: it does the important things as well as headsets costing twice as much. The 53mm drivers produce a clear, slightly warm sound with enough separation that positional audio actually works rather than turning into a wall of noise.

Comfort is the other half of its reputation, and it is the half that decides whether a headset gets used. Memory foam pads and a well-judged clamping force mean it stays comfortable through a four-hour session, which is exactly where cheaper headsets fail and where expensive ones often do too. PC Gamer reaches the same conclusion and puts it more bluntly: if comfort is the thing being optimised for, this is the pick, and the sound is a modest step rather than a leap. Being wired, it also has nothing to charge and nothing to pair. The limitation is the cable, and how much it matters is entirely situational: you are tethered to the desk, and the cable will eventually be the part that fails, though it is replaceable. There is no active noise cancelling and no Bluetooth for music.

The Backbone Pro reframes the whole question. Their phone already carries a great screen and a fast chip, and what it lacks is real controls. Snap this around it and Game Pass cloud streaming, PS Remote Play and the deep mobile-native catalogue all become playable with sticks and triggers instead of thumbs on glass.

Handheld mode clamps the phone in and connects over USB-C, which is the lower-latency of its two modes and the thing that makes or breaks this category. The Pro also plays wirelessly over Bluetooth on its own battery, rated at about 40 hours, so the same pad pairs with a tablet, a PC or a TV when the phone is not the screen. A capture button feeds clips, and the whole assembly weighs less than a paperback and disappears into any bag, which is the commuter profile a 700-gram handheld cannot match. Set expectations correctly when you give it: cloud streaming needs solid internet to be pleasant, and this plays their phone’s catalogue and their streams, not their Steam library sitting on a PC at home. As a first handheld, a starter for a kid, or a travel companion, it delivers most of the experience for a fraction of the price.

The OLED revision turned a great device into the category benchmark. The Steam Deck OLED pairs a gorgeous HDR screen with meaningfully better battery and quieter cooling, plus the thing Windows-based rivals still chase, which is console-simple sleep and resume that just works when you pick it up.

The Verified programme does the compatibility homework, and the scale of it is the part people underestimate: GamingOnLinux tracked Valve’s list past 25,000 titles rated Playable or better in January 2026, roughly a quarter of everything on Steam. The result owners report is backlogs finally getting cleared, because couches, commutes and beds turn out to be where unplayed games actually get played. As a gift it is unambiguous for anyone who already buys games on Steam. Its limits are honest: demanding new AAA releases need some settings humility rather than running at maximum, and non-Steam launchers take tinkering. If that tinkering is itself the appeal, the ROG Ally X is the Windows alternative. Otherwise this is the default answer.