11 must-have gadgets for college students in 2024

You probably have a laptop that you use as a daily driver for school, but a tablet can make working on the go easier, or supplement your laptop during the busiest of cram sessions. Apple’s new iPad Air M2 is the one we recommend to most people because it’s the iPad that packs the best in power, features and value. Now available in 11- and 13-inch sizes, the iPad Air earned 91 points in our review thanks to its excellent performance provided by the M2 chipset, its newly installed front-facing camera that makes FaceTime calls a breeze and the fact that. base models now come with twice as much built-in storage as before. In addition, you get TouchID support on the tablet’s power button, 10+ hours of battery life and support for the new Apple Pencil Pro.

Many students will find the 11-inch model an excellent choice for mobile work and even serve as a second screen next to their laptop. But those with any classes that require a lot of drawing, sketching and handwritten notes may want to step up to the 13-inch model and Apple’s new stylus.

Any reader will appreciate the Marshall Emberton II speaker, not just for its good looks. The latest version of the compact, rectangular speaker features 10-watt full-range drivers and passive radiators that help deliver the brand’s signature balanced sound. Its 360-degree sound makes it a great choice for dorm room parties and small desk concerts while studying or hustling on a project. Marshall has improved the battery life on this model too, increasing it from 20 to 30 hours, and it has a durable IP67 rating. And if you decide you want to expand your system, Stacked Mode lets you pair multiple Emberton II speakers together for big, booming sound.

Students have enough memory for all their classes, studies and extracurricular activities — a password manager can help take one thing off that list. And by “one thing,” we actually mean a lot of things, since students have a ton of passwords to keep track of for school and personal accounts. Our top pick for the best password manager, 1Password, offers value at an affordable price of $36 per year.

First and foremost, it stores all your passwords and login credentials in a secure place that you can access from any device you own by remembering just one master password. That means you can stop peeling sticky notes next to your computer screen and never worry about forgetting an important password again. Even better, 1Password has a tool that will help you create strong passwords for you so you don’t fall into the (unsafe) trap of reusing the same, tired passwords for everything. And if you need to use your credentials online, 1Passwords browser extensions will automatically fill in usernames and passwords when you visit key sites, so you can log in quickly without lifting (too many) fingers.

While you may do a lot of homework on your laptop, you’ll likely use all your other devices to get work done, including your tablet, phone, e-reader and the like. A good stand like this one from Anozer can make it easier for you to use those devices to the fullest. It can raise your tablet to the right eye level (and the right angle) to use it as a second screen while working on a research paper, and when you’re done, it’s easy to adjust it to a different position if you want to relax with some Netflix. The phone can fit nicely in it too, if you’re someone who likes to keep their phone screen close to see all incoming notifications, and the weighted base is wider than others, which helps make it more stable. Best of all, everything folds flat when you’re not using it, making it easy to find on trips to the lab or library.

The last thing any student wants is for their laptop to die before they finish writing, or for their phone screen to go black just as they’re on their way home from hanging out with friends. Portable chargers like this Anker Prime power bank can ensure that you don’t experience any kind of power issues on campus, at home or anywhere in between. This nifty, 20,000mAh brick supports 100W charging per port, meaning it can power laptops, tablets, phones and other small mobile devices without breaking a sweat. It also has a handy display on one side that shows you how many watts are flowing through each device you’re powering, as well as how much juice is left in the battery itself. We recommend that you download it with its dedicated base, not only because it supports fast charging but also because you will be less likely to misplace the power bank if you have a special place to charge it.

The best accessory for the iPhone is undoubtedly the Apple Watch, and it can be useful for busy students. Not only does it bring important alerts, times and reminders from your iPhone to your wrist so you don’t miss the most important things, but it will also track daily activities as long as you wear it. It can be difficult to balance being a good student and being a healthy person, but knowing where you stand in terms of daily step counts and exercise levels can encourage you to take the stairs instead of the elevator to your next lecture or join a pickup basketball game instead of sitting on the sidelines.

The latest Apple Watch has a faster processor, a simple new Double Tap feature and Siri request processing, all of which contribute to its status as the best smartwatch you can get right now. Android users, however, are out of luck: Samsung’s Galaxy Watch 6 is a better fit on the Google side of things.

It is a good idea to have all your important school documents saved in more than one place. You may have cloud services provided by your university, or your Google Drive or Dropbox account, but you should supplement that with something like an external hard drive. A portable SSD like our top pick, the Crucial X9 Pro, is a great solution, giving you another place to store all those papers, lab reports, syllabi and the like that you can take anywhere and everywhere. The Crucial X9 Pro proved to be faster in our benchmark tests, and it’s much smaller. About the size of a credit card, it can easily be thrown into your purse or back pocket before you rush out the door for the day. Its aluminum body is also IP55 rated, so it will survive when it comes in contact with water and dust.

It can be easy to lose things at school in the middle of a messy bedroom or while moving all your belongings from one lecture hall to another. Bagsmart’s technology organizer will do much to prevent you from throwing that pen and all your project materials in it or forgetting your trusty wireless mouse before leaving the library. It has a series of pockets and loops to hold all your most used technology, including several dedicated slots for SD cards and large elastics to hold things like a mouse, portable SSD and other larger items. It’s the perfect size to slip easily into a backpack, and the exterior is water-repellent to protect your belongings from accidental spills.

Instead of lugging a bunch of heavy books into your too-small bag, get an e-reader like the Kobo Libra color to make your life easier. One of the newest models from Kobo, the Libra Color has a 7-inch E Ink Kaleido panel, page-opening buttons, improved processing and stylus support – all of this makes it well worth its $220 price tag.

Reading Libra’s color is a great thing, and color only adds to the overall beauty even if it’s not an absolutely necessary feature. The interface is easy to use and has two outstanding features: no ads and a built-in connection to Overdrive, the latter of which makes it even easier to borrow the next book you read in your English Lit class as soon as you need it. it. And if you prefer to take notes, highlight, underline and write in the margins of the books you study in class, you can find a writing program for the best experience that is much closer to the real thing, writing and – the object of paper.

For one pair of ANC earbuds to rule them all, Sony’s WF-1000XM5 is the one to get. Readers will appreciate its compact and comfortable design, robust noise cancellation with flexible volume control, excellent sound quality and eight-hour battery life. These will be the wireless earbuds students take with them wherever they go, whether they want to be entertained before a football game with their favorite music or shut out the world in the library while studying for final exams. These buds also support advanced features such as Speak to Chat, which pauses audio when the buds hear you talking, and multi-point connectivity. If you prefer in-ear headphones, our top pick of wireless headphones available right now also comes from Sony: the WH-1000XM5 cans.

Sometimes sitting at a desk just isn’t the vibe. Lapgear’s lapdesk can make it much easier and more comfortable to work from your bed or couch by giving you a solid place to put your laptop, notebook, textbook and other things. The soft padding on the bottom is designed to keep your thigh cool even after hours of work, and there is a built-in mousepad on top that you can use with your favorite device. We also appreciate the phone compartment that keeps your handset in view at all times and the handle at the top for easy portability.