With school right around the corner, it’s that time of the year when you should stop wasting away your days and start taking action to help ensure you’re prepared and ready for your upcoming semester. And that means two things: buying new clothes and buying new gear!
Below you’ll find some of our recommended must-have, back-to-school tech gadgets. With these tools in your bag, you’ll have everything that you need!
External Hard Drive
A new school semester means new assignments, new projects, and new study materials. And all of these things require storage. Though you can rely on external thumb drives or cloud-based services like Drop Box, nothing is as reliable or as convenient as an external hard drive.
Their capacities are far greater than that of flash drives (transfer or “write” speeds tend to be better as well) and unlike cloud-based storage, they don’t require monthly subscriptions (or logging in and out on a school’s wi-fi service). When it comes to external HDs, you have options – we recommend a sold-state drive, however.
Though the initial cost may be higher, they tend to be more reliable than traditional hard drives due to the lack of moving parts.
Convertible Laptop
What’s a convertible laptop? Well, like a convertible car, it’s a laptop computer that’s been designed specifically to fulfill more than one need or function. Just as a convertible car can be driven with the top up or down, a convertible laptop, like the many offered by Lenovo, can be used as a regular desktop computer or as a tablet. The benefits of such a design are clear:
- Lightweight
- Versatile
- Convenient
- Good price
- Perfect for students
As anyone who’s ever tried to type or work on a tablet knows, they leave a lot to be desired. And yet, a laptop – even a small and portable laptop – can’t hope to be as portable or convenient as a tablet. With a convertible laptop, you can enjoy the best of both worlds.
Wireless Printer
With the world going digital, it’s easy to forget that occasionally, there still exists a need to print out hard copies. And for this very reason, most people don’t realize just how affordable printers have become! The options vary, of course, but a very capable, fully wireless, full-color printer can be had quite cheaply these days.
Whether you need to print out your assignments (perhaps your professor is of the old-school mentality?) or are in need of a printer for photography or graphic design purposes, there is a sea of choices. That being said, we tend to think that your basic needs should be met for less money, not more.
Noise-canceling Headphones
Any doubt as to why you might need noise-canceling headphones will go out the window the moment you try them on for the first time. For those late-nighters at the library, there is no better way to isolate yourself from the outside world than with these trick devices.
By recording ambient sounds and emitting a counter frequency, noise-canceling headphones can go a long way towards eliminating all ambient sound – much more so, in fact, than if you were to simply attempt to block outside sounds through the use of ear plugs. Though the cost for noise-canceling headphones can vary, you can’t put a price on tranquility!
Roku Streaming Media
If you’re under 35 years of age, the chances are good that you have friends who have opted not to have cable television. If you’re under 25 years of age, the chances are good that you are that person! And why would you bother with cable TV, with devices like the Roku available?
This device plugs in to any modern television via HDMI and allows instant access to a wide range of streaming services, including Netflix, Hulu Plus, Crackle, Amazon Instant Video, HBO GO, Pandora and more. Movies, television, music, and live sports are a simple click away – without a cable subscription! If you have a television, you need Roku!
