When term starts, ensure you’re properly equipped with gadgets that’ll help academic life
By no means an exhaustive list, we’ve price-watched seven items that’ll boost university life — from ensuring that precious essay isn’t lost forever, to staying active and staying contactable.
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An eReader: Yes, even if your student is a dye-in-the-wool physical book fan, as so many of us are, lugging a load of extra weight in a backpack may not be workable. Some textbooks may be sourced in eBook format, making it a bit easier to study without the impact of several books hitting your back as you head to the library. We’ve sourced prices for the OG Kindle from Amazon and the new kid on the block Kobo, which allows users to customise their reading experience.
External hard drive: Look, it’s not exciting but it’s vital — the last thing you want is for your laptop to go missing or break and you lose everything you’ve written for that essay due in an hour. We’ve opted to price 1 terabyte options, which is pretty large. Whatever you choose, a hard drive will help ensure you’re not starting from scratch on that dissertation.
Digital notebook: OK, this may not be a necessity, but we love the idea of this. Designed for classrooms and offices, it’s a reusable pen and paper notebook that connects to cloud services such as Google Drive, iCloud iMessage and email. Some of the accompanying app’s functions mean you can name files and transcribe notes to text.
Noise-cancelling headphones: We know, student life is about noise and parties and socialising. But sometimes, perhaps around the aforementioned dissertation writing, there’ll be a need to block out the surrounding chatter and get in the zone.
Portable speaker: Now this will help if you are planning on socialising. A good portable speaker is worth its weight in terms of adding atmosphere to get-togethers, parties in the park or even watching films on your laptop.
Portable charger: In the good old days, you’d get an entire day out of your mobile phone, if you can believe it. In 2024, good luck with that. Unsurprisingly, we’d encourage a power bank as a must-have item when student tech shopping. Even though we’re much older than the 2024 intake of students, the idea of running out of battery is unthinkable for us, so it’d be much the same for them.
Fitness tracker: If an expensive gym membership isn’t going to happen but you’re still keen to stay fit and active while studying, a tracker is a solid investment. It’ll track your heart rate and help you monitor changes and of course, reach fitness goals.