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With fall semester due to begin, our tech reviewer lays out the best back-to-school laptops, headphones, writing tablets, smartphones and more to ease back into studies
We found the 30 best deals for students and parents, from headphones and chairs to a shoe rack
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August is here, which makes it a great time to think about what tech you need to get the most out of college. Whether you need to get around the campus, carry all your stuff from lecture hall to lecture hall, or want to be the life of the party after your studies are complete, we’ve found a wide variety of tech and accessories to help you navigate campus life. Even if this is your final year, we have suggestions to help get you across that stage with your tassel flipped over.
We have tested every piece of tech in this list, and our picks cover a range of prices as well, so if you don’t have the cash for (or want) the latest and greatest, there are some budget options. College is supposed to be fun and a great learning experience. We hope these picks will help you with both.
Be sure to also check out our piece on our favorite back-to-school deals right now.
Sleeping in a new environment can be tough and sleeping in a dorm with other people can feel almost impossible. The Soundcore Sleep A20 buds are tiny. They fit in your ear so that even side-sleepers like me will not feel them. (I didn’t.)
They also have onboard white noise tones you can pick from, or you can stream from your phone. Plus, they can detect when you fall asleep and switch over to the on board sound automatically to save battery so they’ll last all night long.
The Anker Power Strip with 2100J Surge Protector will keep all your tech charged and running. It has 12 nicely-spaced-out power outlets, two USB-A ports and one USB-C port. It comes with a 5ft or 10ft cable, depending on your needs, and can power everything. I have one powering most of my devices at my desk and I liked it so much, I ordered two more for my living room and bedroom.
If you don’t want to keep your music to yourself, the JLab Pop Party is an excellent little speaker with a silicon strap that lets you attach it to a bag, the handlebars of your bike (my preferred use) or somewhere inside your dorm. It has solid bass performance for its size, but it’s small enough that its volume is limited, helping you stay in your neighbors’ good graces. You can usually find it between $20 and $25.
If you are more into note taking than drawing, or prefer something black and white with a long-lasting battery (days, possibly a week or more, depending on your use), the iFlytek AInote Air 2 is an e-ink tablet that’s better for writing and has an in-built AI recorder so you can record a lecture, get a summary of it and take notes at the same time.
The Wacom MovinkPad 11 is a tablet designed specifically for drawing and art. It’s a full-color tablet, great for art students. On-board software helps you organize your artwork into various folders and are all easily accessible from the app. The pen experience is lovely – very similar to writing on paper.
If you are an Apple user, it’s hard to go wrong with the iPad Air. The 11in model is the right size for most people. The new M4 processor is blazing fast and the tablet itself is lightweight at under 1kg. In our full iPad Air M4 review, we noted that “the Apple Pencil stylus turns it into a fantastic note-taking device or digital sketch pad”, and if you add a magic keyboard, you basically have a second laptop. #WhatsAComputer
A smartwatch is helpful for all sorts of things in college, including tracking your health, monitoring your sleep – or lack thereof – and serving up notifications in a subtle, non-intrusive way during a physics lecture. Three things set the Amazfit Active 3 Premium apart: it works with Apple and Android phones, is far less expensive than many modern smartwatches (while being just as capable), and has a remarkably smart AI assistant on board that can answer questions for you and perform various watch functions, such as setting alarms and timers.
