By Andrew Eisner

Not everyone is lucky enough to own an iPhone, Droid or some other cool smartphone, but we'd wager that most of you know someone who does and there's also a good chance you'll be buying a gift for that person this holiday season.

If you want to make sure your gift is well received we suggest you heed this advice based on a recent Retrevo Gadgetology study that looked at smartphone owners under the age of 35, the gadgets accessories they own, and the ones they want to buy.

Smartphone owners prefer accessories

Although most non-smartphone owners would still prefer a sweater or scarf this year, smartphone owners under 35 are a different breed. The study found a large number of those smartphone owners say they would like to receive accessories for their phones and other gadgets more than more traditional items like clothing, books, perfume, and sweets. When we asked what they plan to buy for themselves this holiday season, 75% of iPhone owners compared to around 50% of Android owners said they plan to buy accessories for their phone.

iPhone owners spend more money accessorizing their phones

Whether it's the fact that there are just too many cool accessories for younger iPhone owners to resist or they just love to buy stuff for their favorite gadget, those iPhone owners spend more on their phones. In fact more than a quarter of iPhone owners say they've spent more than $100 accessorizing their phone while more than 10% have spent more than $200. Compare that to the handful of BlackBerry owners (1%) and Android owners (5.7%) in that age group who have spent that much ($200 or more).

iPhone owners are vain and they're connoisseurs of fine accessories

When you're considering what accessory to buy the iPhone owner in your life this holiday season you might want to take into account some things we found that you may, in fact, already suspect about that person. Consider this:

° 50% consider themselves "fashionista."

° 48% buy cases to "decorate" their phones.

° 27% buy cases to match their outfits.

° 21% buy cases to impress their friends.

° 90% perceive cases as means of self-expression.

° 50% would spend more than $50 on a designer case.

What to buy that special smartphone owner in your life

Now that you know how much this group of smartphone owners loves gadget accessories we're sure you're asking, "which one should get?" According to the study you should consider getting an iPhone owner some cool earbuds or a gift certificate to custom skin seller like GelaSkin or maybe some other "fashionable" case or skin. Get an Android owner some headphones, earbuds, or cool camera accessory like a Gorillapod. Don't get a BlackBerry owner a camera accessory, they prefer a case, speaker dock or maybe a Bluetooth headset.

Conclusion

While the rest of the country's phone owners are opening their gifts of sweaters, ties, and scarves, smartphone owners will be hoping that small gift box contains something special for their smartphone or other favorite gadget. Smartphone owners may be leading the way with their growing enthusiasm for gadget accessories as we see more and more interest in all kinds of gadget accessories from smartphone skins to iPad cases. Here's wishing you a gadget accessory-filled holiday season!

The Retrevo Gadgetology Report is an ongoing study of people and electronics from the consumer electronics shopping and review site Retrevo.com. The data for this most recent report came from a study of online individuals (non-Retrevo users) conducted by an independent panel between Oct. 22 and Oct. 28, exclusively for Retrevo. The sample size was over 1,000 online individuals within the U.S, distributed across gender and age. Most responses have a confidence interval of 4% at a 95% confidence level.

For more about Retrevo's report go to http://www.retrevo.com/content/blog/2010/11/dont-buy-smartphone-owner-sw... .

(Andrew Eisner is a computer journalist and the director of content for the consumer electronics shopping and review site Retrevo.com. Retrevo.com is one of the largest consumer electronics review and shopping sites in the world, helping people decide what to buy, when to buy, and where to buy. Retrevo uses artificial intelligence to analyze and graphically summarize more than 50 million real-time data points from across the web to give shoppers the most comprehensive, unbiased, up-to-date product information they need to make smart, confident purchasing decisions for electronics.)