The best gifts for teenage boys

Anker built its reputation on delivering most of the flagship experience at a third of the price, and Soundcore does that here. They sound good, the case is pocketable, and the battery is honest. We keep earbuds off our older lists for one specific reason: touch controls misfire against glasses, hats and hearing aids, and a lost single bud costs more than half the price of the pair.

Two specifications separate a set that becomes an heirloom from one that becomes clutter: solid hardwood rather than veneer, and weighted, felted pieces rather than hollow ones. The reason to spend here is not the chess. It is that a beautiful board left out gets used and a folding vinyl one in a cupboard does not, and what you are buying is the afternoons that follow.

Undercuts Theragun consistently — around £219 against £299 at the mid range — and it is the quieter, lighter tool, which is what actually determines whether one of these gets used more than twice. Theragun answers with a two-year warranty against Hyperice’s one, and with a triangular handle that genuinely reaches a mid-back unaided. On balance the cheaper, quieter one wins.

The best-known star projector and genuinely lovely for the first few nights — the laser-and-nebula effect is more convincing than the cheap LED versions. Our score is low because the novelty is the product: adults stop using these within weeks, and the housing feels like its price. It still earns a place on the teenage and grandchild lists, where delight is the point and permanence is not.

A 7-inch screen holds a paragraph together at 200 per cent font size in a way the 6-inch Kobo cannot, and stated battery life runs to around twelve weeks. Buy it if the recipient already has an Amazon library, because that transfers and nothing else on this page outweighs it. Pay the extra to remove the lock-screen advertisements — handing someone a present with adverts on it is a false economy.