The Gizmodo Back to School Guide 2024

As regular as clockwork, back-to-school season has rolled around again, which means you (or someone in your life) could be shopping for the best gadgets to take into the classroom, lecture hall, or library. There’s a lot of choice, and picking the right gear isn’t always straightforward.

That’s where this list comes in: These are our top recommendations for tech you can trust to help you through grade school, high school, college, or wherever your studying is happening. Once you’ve got everything you need, you can turn your full attention to the business of getting educated.

The best laptop to last you for years
Apple MacBook Air

The latest 2024 MacBook Air will cost you—it starts at $1,099—but it’s undoubtedly money well spent and will last you for years. It’s the best laptop, combining great Apple M3 chip performance with a lightweight, sleek design, so you’ll have no problems carrying it around.

Battery life is also top-tier (which helps when you’re out all day without access to a power socket). You can pick between 13-inch and 15-inch screen sizes, and it’s hard to beat macOS for polish and poise (it just keeps getting better, too). If you want to save yourself some money, then the older M2 version of the laptop is fantastic as well.

Maybe you don’t want to spend as much as the MacBook Air costs, or you’re not keen on Apple devices. If that’s the case, then the Lenovo IdeaPad Flex 5i Chromebook Plus can be had for under $500. It offers some solid specs for your money—all packaged in a streamlined form factor topped off with a high-quality 14-inch touchscreen display.

The screen bends back, too, so you can prop it up for movie watching and video calls or use it as a tablet. You need to ensure you can do all of your computing inside a Chrome browser—which tends to be the case for most of us these days—but if you can, you’ll find Google ChromeOS stays clutter-free and out of your way.

The best value-for-money smartphone
Google Pixel 8a

If you don’t have much to spend on a smartphone, there are cases to be made for the iPhone SE and Samsung’s mid-range handsets, but it’s hard to beat the Google Pixel 8a when it comes to bang for your buck. That it’s so similar to the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro while costing substantially less tells you all you need to know about this handset.

You get the latest Gemini AI tricks and are first in line whenever new Android updates appear. Plus, you get helpful Pixel exclusives, such as the Pixel Recorder app, which automatically transcribes spoken text (handy for lectures). As you would expect from a Pixel phone, the photo and video-taking capabilities are pretty impressive, too.

The Apple iPad remains the go-to device for anyone needing a tablet, and our only reservation about recommending the entry-level model is that it’s likely to be replaced soon. With a starting price of $349, it’s significantly more affordable than the other iPads, and it supports accessories like the Apple Pencil and keyboard cover cases.

The iPad has a wealth of great apps—including apps covering email, entertainment, and education—and it’s now better than ever at multitasking. What’s more, it looks the part, comes in various funky colors, and is built to last (though you should probably still buy a case to go with it to be on the safe side).

There are advantages to buying a separate webcam, even if there’s one built into your laptop lid—especially if you do a lot of video calling for your studies or keeping in touch with friends and family. A separate webcam gives you more flexibility in placement and angles and will often offer better quality and more features.

At $69.99, the Logitech C920s Pro HD is reasonably priced and offers a lot. It offers crisp 1080p video at 30 frames per second, a wide field of view, and even automatic light correction (so you won’t appear washed out or in silhouette). The webcam also has two mics built in, so you’ll always be heard—unless you’re on mute.

Some seriously good headphones are a must for heading back to school (or college): You need them for listening to online materials, video calls, blasting through your favorite playlists, and more. You have a wealth of choices in this category, so you should be able to find a pair of headphones that matches your style and budget.

If you want to take our recommendation, the Soundcore by Anker Space Q45 headphones can be yours for less than $150 (so firmly in the mid-range) and yet offer active noise canceling, a real kick to the audio output, and battery life that goes way past the average—proving you don’t have to pay top dollar if you want to get great sound.

If your course means you can’t go entirely paperless, then the $120 Brother HL-L2405W is worth a look. It’s a monochrome laser printer, so it’s speedy, reliable, and unable to print in color—which is, if you stop to think about it, not a problem 99 percent of the time (if you need photo prints, you can always order them online).

You’ll find the printer ticks all the boxes you need for churning out essays, notes, and whatever else you need hard copies of. You can even send documents to it from a mobile phone, which can be handy. You’ll get better quality and more features from more expensive models, but this fits the bill if you’re looking for a workhorse for study.