As the holiday shopping period is just about at the home stretch, we have a couple last minute ideas. As smart watches are set exploding in popularity, here are some great examples to consider, in alphabetical order.

Cookoo 

cookoo smart watch

Though, perhaps, not the most versatile of the smartwatches on the market, Cookoo’s offerings are much more stylish than many others currently available. For the most part, the Cookoo watches are really more notification devices than actual wearable computers. The Cookoo watches notify you of: incoming calls, missed calls, Facebook messages and posts, Twitter mentions, calendar reminders, SMS, email notifications, among others.

Where the Cookoo really stands out is the pricing. Starting at $129, the Cookoo smartwatches are among the most budget friendly.

Martian Passport Watch

Martin Smart Watch

Martin Watches has one of the most stylish and functional offerings on the smartwatch market. Among the features are:

  • Voice Commands – Create calendar events, check weather & directions, set an alarm and search the web hands-free.
  • Notifications – SMS, calendar, email and social notifications
  • Take Phone Calls – Answer or place a call from your wrist

What’s more, the analog watch face is completely independent of smart functions, meaning that while the smartwatch component of the Martin may last for 2+ hours of talk time, the analog watch will run for as long as two years. Perhaps the largest downside of the Martin Passport is the $249 price tag.

Pebble 

pebble

The Pebble is the smartwatch that started it all. The Pebble began as a Kickstarter campaign, raising $10,266,845, from more than 68,000 backers. As it stands today, the Pebble is the most complete smartwatch offering on the market. The features include:

  • Robust alerts and notifications
  • Battery life of 5-7 days
  • Fully customizable watch faces and display
  • Waterproof
  • Hundreds of apps

With a price tag of $150, the Pebble may be the best value of all the smartwatches.

Qualcomm Toq

Toq watch

We took a look at the Toq earlier this month. The Toq is pretty similar, in terms of features, to the Pebble. That said, the Toq takes everything that Pebble did, and makes it slightly better. Think of it as a sort of Pebble 2.0. Here is what we said about the features earlier:

Qualcomm has included a Marisol display inside of the Toq which is their own display technology. The Toq connects to Android devices via Bluetooth and has a minimum OS requirement of Android 4.03, so you aren’t extremely limited on device compatibility there. Displaying your notifications, calls and other information is the 1.55 inch Marisol display that is always on, which brings a bit of concern when it comes to battery life. Qualcomm states that the device will last for days on a single charge, so that is a plus though we need to see how that works in the real world under heavy usage.

It looks like the price of the Toq has dropped from the $349 at launch to $299 on Amazon.

Sony Smart Watch SW2

Sony Smart watch

This is Sony’s second smartwatch offering. By all accounts, Sony has made some major improvements in the SW2. Some features include:

  • Sunlight readable,
  • Touch, Swipe, Pinch UI
  • water resistant (IP57)
  • Standalone digital watch
  • Phone to watch via Bluetooth – messages, calls, Facebook, Twitter, sports apps, music player, calendar

The SW2 is selling for $185 on Amazon