Back to school tech

The summer holiday is over, but it’s not too late to purchase all of the tech essentials that you need for your study life. In this blog, I’ll offer some recommendations on the best deals on the market right now that you may wish to consider.

Student Discounts

Let me just start with student discounts. This is the biggest essential and is a huge benefit of being a student because discounts mean paying less and ultimately saving money. These discounts aren’t just limited to tech products either; you can save money on food and clothes too.

Unidays

So, with that said, I would totally recommend signing up to Unidays. It costs absolutely nothing; all you need to do is register with your email address and you’ll get a link to verify that you’re a student. It’s that easy and it’s totally worth doing because it’s quick, it’s easy and, best of all, it’s free and offers discount codes for majority of the places you generally shop or eat at. Most places accept it as student ID too, so you don’t need to fork out for a NUS card, unless you want to.

Amazon Prime

You’ve probably heard of Amazon Prime and it’s not really an essential but it’s a great membership to have. For £39 per year, you can get super fast one day deliveries (sometimes same day delivery too), special discounts, access to thousands of movies and TV shows (similar to Netflix) as well as over 2 million songs. You also get a selection of ebooks, magazines and comics. All of the above for £39 a year isn’t bad at all.

Apple Mac or iPad Pro

Depending on what you’re studying, you might need an Apple Mac for specific software or you might want or need an iPad Pro. Either way, now is the perfect time to purchase one because whilst you can get student discount on these products all year round, you can get even more by being eligible to get Beats Solo3 wireless headphones worth £250, thanks to Apple’s current back to school deal. If you need wireless headphones then this would be an absolute bonus for you. However, if you don’t want the headphones then you’re still at an advantage as you can sell them (as brand new and sealed) and use that money to treat yourself to something else or save it. It’s a win-win situation really so it’s the best time to buy a Mac or iPad Pro before the deal ends.

Laptops under £500

In this day and age, a laptop is essential since the internet is required and widely used and with educational institutions going digital, paper is so last year. So, whether it’s to research, do homework, write assignments and for those non-educational web browsing (you know I’m talking about social media, right?), buying a laptop should be considered and if you’ve already got one then it may be just be really old and you might just fancy an upgrade. Either way, below are links to a few laptops that I think would be good for any student who needs one for school / college / university, have specs that are good enough and are affordable.

Check them out whilst the deals are still active.

• Lenovo IdeaPad 330s - i5 - £479 4GB RAM | 128GB SSD | Intel Core i5 processor | 14" | £479 (was £699.99)

• Lenovo IdeaPad 330s - i3 - £379.99 4GB RAM | 128GB SSD | Intel Core i3 processor | 14" | £379.99 (was £549.99)

• Acer Aspire 6 - £499 4GB RAM | 1TB HDD | Intel Core i5 processor | 15.6" | £499 (was £599.99)

• HP 14" - £499 8GB RAM | 128GB SSD | Intel Core i5 processor | 14" | £499 (was £649.99)

TrackR Bravo Bluetooth Tracker

The TrackR Bravo is a small little tracker that you can attach to your keys, your phone, your bike, almost anything you want. It’s a great piece of tech that can help you find something that you may have lost and with prices starting from £12.70, it’s well worth making the investment.

Even if your phone is on silent, you can use the tracker to ring it and if it’s attached to your keys then you can use the app on your phone to find where it is by looking at the map. It’s ideal and if you’re known for losing or misplacing things then this may be very worthwhile for you. It’s generally good to have too, even if you’ve never lost anything before.

Sony SRS XB10 Wireless Bluetooth Speaker

Some people work well with the TV or music on in the background and whilst you will not always be studying, music in the background whilst doing other things can be good too, just not when it’s coming directly from your phone or laptop. That’s where this Sony SRS XB10 wireless bluetooth speaker comes in handy. It’s only £39 and it’s quite small and compact but packs a lot of bass and high quality sound for a speaker of its size. I personally own this one too and cannot recommend it enough. It’s definitely loud enough too and the battery life is around 16 hours, so you will not have to worry about charging it too often either.

Thoughts

With back to school just around the corner, it’s a good time to consider buying the tech above as these prices will not be around for long. At least, not until the next big sales, which will be on Black Friday and Christmas of course.

Hopefully you found the above useful and if you don’t fancy buying any of the above, I would definitely recommend at least signing up for UniDays because student discounts are literally the best and it’s free. I graduated a few years ago but my Uni email address is still valid, which means I can continue to use UniDays for discounts and it’s the best feeling. I never want to pay full price for things again! =]