What's trending in back-to-school tech
Credit to Author: Mary Beth Roberts| Date: Fri, 06 Sep 2019 15:43:31 +0000
With students packing to head back to dorm rooms and classrooms, tech tops the list of items that make academics easier.
For tips on finding the best budget-priced laptop, to gadgets that help bring the comforts of home to your dorm room, here’s our back-to-school guide for 2019.
Price isn’t the only factor in choosing a laptop. The computer that’s powerful enough for a grade-school book report isn’t going to serve someone who has CAD software on the curriculum. But starting as low as $250, Chromebooks are a good budget option for students. They’re based on Google’s Chrome operating system, relying on Internet connectivity to run cloud-based applications and storage. Chromebooks’ battery life tends to be long, 10 hours and more. Setup is easy, particularly if you already have a Google account and your working or school life is already pretty much in the cloud. If weight is a factor for lugging a laptop to school, check out Samsung’s recently announced Galaxy Book S. It packs a lot of performance in a Windows 10, 13-3-inch touchscreen laptop, a mere 11.8 mm at its thickest point and weighing less than a kilogram. It promises up to 23 hours of battery life and is expected out in the coming weeks with a price tag of $999 US or around $1,350 Cdn.
Epson has a range of EcoTank printers that covers everything from the dorm room to the family room to small business and more. There are two factors that push these to the top of my back-to-school list. First, while cutting back on the amount you print is the most enviro-friendly way to go, for those times you absolutely need to print, one set of replacement ink bottles for an EcoTank printer gives you the same output as 80 ink cartridges. And the replacement set can last on average two years. So when you’re figuring out the overall cost of a printer, remember you won’t be running back and forth to the store to replace ink cartridges. For an option that will meet the needs of a busy home, check out the EcoTank ET2760, at $400, an all-in-one printer with voice activation and printing, scanning and copying in a single device.
In a world of wireless connections, iffy WiFi can stop productivity in its tracks. In our family room, the signal was so finicky that moving from one side of the sectional to the other was enough to lose the signal. Add to that the growing number of devices that need to be connected and wireless systems can sink under the demand.
For an affordable answer to the wireless dilemma, check out TP-Link’s M4 Deco Mesh Router, a home WiFi system designed to cover spaces up to 353 square meters (3,800 square feet). It has parental controls so you can set time limits on online use, including a bedtime cutoff. It also works with Amazon’s personal assistant Alexa. The white, vertical cylinders, close to 20 cm tall, with a black grill top, are an attractive fit for your home. They’re capable of a maximum data transfer rate of 300 Mbps on the 2,4 GHz band and 867 Mbps on your Internet’s 5GHz band.
For a budget-priced item to expand your streaming options, check out the Roku Express, at $45. Its hotel and dorm connect feature is handy for students who can use it to access their own Roku account on their dorm’s wireless network. Along with the better-known paid services, like Netflix and Amazon Prime, a Roku device delivers access to a range of channels and services, including sports, news services and more, so you can cut the cable.
The Roku Express.
At home, the Google Nest Hub, is a multi-purpose smart screen that can control your smart devices as well as giving you an extra speaker for spots like the kitchen counter, a video display and when it’s not in use, it’s just a good-looking photo frame. Regularly $169, it’s available now for $99, helping to create the connected home without breaking the budget.
When it comes to comfort and noise-cancelling performance, it’s a bit of ‘you get what you pay for,’ but there’s a wide range of over-the-ear or earbud headphones for every budget. If you’re not an Apple user but like the idea of AirPods, check out the Jabra Elite 65t with built-in playback controls, five hours of battery life and a hearthrough feature that you can turn on to stay safe in your surroundings when you’re out and about. If you’re planning to buy a MacBook, back-to-school is a good time with Apple throwing in Beats Studio3 wireless headphones for free with your laptop purchase.
The Elite 65t.
This story was created by Content Works, Postmedia’s commercial content division.