As a student, technology can be used to help make your life just that little bit easier. But with so many gadgets on the market, and a limited student budget to work with, what are the best pieces to invest in?
Here’s our guide for the top tech gadgets that every student NEEDS to own...
Smart Notebook Whether it’s better to take notes on a laptop or stay classic and use a notebook is a question can often be hotly debated...
Using laptops for some makes the note taking process a lot quicker, while also making storing and re-finding them much easier.
However, research suggests that longhand note-taking helps you better take in and retain the information long-term (useful come exam time!)
But with a smart notebook - you can get the best of both worlds! You can combine the best aspects of both writing by hand and taking digital notes. With the smart notebook you have the ability to make handwritten notes just as normal, but digitally store them. After writing your notes you can use an app to take a picture of the page that will then be turned into a digital file that you can store on any device, share and edit/add to online easily at a later date.
The HOMESTEC smart notebook is the most complete out there and has the added benefit of being reusable; after you use the pages and uploaded your notes online, you can erase what you've written with the pen eraser or a cloth (even a high heat hairdryer works!).
This means you only ever need one notebook - meaning you only have to buy it once and you also do your bit to help the environment and reduce waste. Just make sure you remember to digitise the notes first before erasing!
Where to Buy: You can find smart notebooks on Amazon, Currys, or Argos.
Portable Charging Pack If your phone is essential to you then so is a portable charging pack. Phone batteries may be getting better but they still quite often don’t last the whole day. It’s a gutting feeling when you have to walk home from classes with no music because your phone is dead.
A portable charging pack is great to prevent this scenario, you can bring it along with you on the go and use it to keep your phone alive. For the charger to work you often just need a USB cable (most portable chargers now will give you multiple cables).
All you need to do is remember to charge the pack itself!
Where to Buy: Anker are the market leader for these sorts of products; they offer a whole range of products that suit all your needs. Some are chunkier, but last a bit longer whereas others are much slimmer and more portable. The Anker website
Noise Cancelling Headphones For a student with lots of deadlines noise, cancelling headphones are perfect. When you have an easy to do for the next day, they can help you to drown out the noise surrounding you and focus on your work. Not just that, they are great for everyday use; walking to lectures and trying to relax without being disturbed call for the use of noise cancelling headphones.
Technological advances now mean that noise cancelling headphones are better than ever, the headphones now really will cancel out any distractions around you. With the noise cancelling headphones you will also find better sound quality in general. This means that you can listen to whatever playlists you wish with no distractions and high-quality sounds.
There’s a huge range of headphones available out there, so what ones you get would depend on your budget. If you spend a bit more money you can get some incredibly complex and scientifically researched designs that will give you the closest you can get to complete noise block out that you can get. If you don’t want spend so much money you can get some cheaper ones that are still great at blocking out noise.
Where to Buy: Sony have a great product range that cover the expensive to the cheaper headphones but all high quality and very well-reviewed. You can view the whole range here
Power Strip Having a power strip in your room makes it incredibly easy to set up and charge all the electronics in you room at the same time.
Your room should be a relaxing place you can head back to after a long day at college or uni - it shouldn’t be a maze of wires. Power strips can be used in your room to organise everything, you can have your tv, games console, reading light, phone charger, laptop charger and even more plugged into one convenient place.
The flexible power strips can be put anywhere in the room and can even be placed around chair legs, bedframes or any other obstacles that you may have in your room. You can even get ones that are up to 3metres long so you have complete control over where the wires go.
Where to Buy: You can find these products on Amazon, Argos or even your local supermarket might sell them.
Laptop
Laptops are particularly useful to students, they give you the ability to take your work out and about, to download lectures and even to make notes if you find it easier than writing freehand. And it means you can study from the comfort of home - and not have to trek down to the library to use a computer.
Once you have a laptop you should also strive to use it effectively. There’s a lot of applications on a laptop that are great at improving your life. For example, you can create 'to do' lists that can be constantly updated and get your assignments done on the Microsoft office, which is free to students.
The Acer Chromebook 15 is great for students, it’s got a long battery life, great storage and is cost-effective for a student budget. This laptop also comes with a Google Chrome operating system, which is very user-friendly making it much easier to navigate your laptop and use it to your advantage.
Where to Buy: You can find these at any PC store (Curry’s etc.) or on Amazon.
Wireless Bluetooth Speaker
Obviously as a student, you should try to spend a lot of time on your studies, but you should also make time to socialise. And whether you are just in your room getting some coursework done or relaxing with friends out and about, it's always good to have some music, as long as the person in control of said music know what they’re doing!!
So one piece of tech that is definitely worth investing in is a portable Bluetooth speaker. The best part about portable speaker is (as the name would suggest) you can take it everywhere, so you can always have music with you.
Where to Buy: The sound company, JBL, have a great range of portable speakers with a really high-quality sound on them. Some are bigger, with incredible sound quality and others are smaller but so portable that you can literally carry it around in your pocket. You can see the whole range here
Virtual Assistant Virtual assistants such as Alexa and Google Home Mini are some of the most exciting bits of tech to come out in recent times. Years ago, it would be unthinkable that you can control your music, your lights and more with just your voice. It’s a great bit of tech to take advantage of and use it to improve your lifestyle.
Your own private assistant can make organising your life so much easier. Instead of you trying to remember all your assignments, lectures and possible meetings you can let your virtual assistant organise it all for you, and alert you with reminders to make sure you don’t miss anything important.
With virtual assistants, the most popular is the Amazon Echo, this comes in many forms, there are speakers in lots of sizes so you can choose the one that suits your room the best. The Dot is the easiest to fit anywhere. It only measures 43 x 99 x 99 mm making it the most convenient of the range. You can also go with the Google Home Mini; this is not as highly rated as the Amazon Echo but could be the preferred option if you have a bit of brand loyalty to google (for example if you already have a Google Pixel phone).
Where to Buy: Amazon or Currys are probably the best places to pick up a bargain.
Heated Travel Mug Coffee (or tea) is an essential part of any day at university, dragging yourself out of bed to go to a 9am lecture becomes so much easier with a cup of coffee. This will, however, wear off eventually and if you don’t want to pay heaps at the university Starbucks then you can bring your own. Using a heated travel mug/flask you can have a supply of fresh, hot coffee to enjoy throughout the day.
Travel mugs may seem like a very simple piece of kit but technological advances have made them become so much more. You can now get portable mugs where you have control over the temperature from an app on your phone, this means if you like your beverage particularly hot or a little bit more on the Luke warm side then you can control this.
It also means no wasted single-use coffee cups which helps reduce wastage so you can feel good about your purchase.
The travel mug from Ember gives you all of this ability, it also has a function so that you can change the temperature for when you need even if you don’t have the phone. The battery percentage and temperature are also shown so you can keep an eye on it. This gives you complete control over the temperature of your coffee so you can be as fussy as you want.
Where to Buy: Ember, and alternative brand cups are easy to find on Amazon or any high street gift shop.
NEXT:
- 6 tech tips every university student should know
- Top 10 apps for students
