YugaTech Back-to-School Gadget Guide!

We’re halfway through 2014, and just as the way things go, a lot of students in the Philippines are going back to school as it is June already. Some students will be having classes further July & August, and some may wish vacation lasted forever, but hey, education is a nice ride worth having. To add to the ride, we have a list of gadgets that can make your schooling life much more efficient. Read on with us for another YugaTech gadget guide!

Disclaimer: To begin with, we have to say that our guide’s scope tackles a more general view of schooling. High school students’ needs may vary from, say, someone who studies the arts in a university. Also keep in mind that this list does not encourage use of gadgets in schools that prohibit specific gadget use.

Audio

On the road, most students are probably listening to their favorite tunes or watching their new videos, and they all do this with audio plugged into their ears. Now we figured you don’t want anything designed loudly as it will attract a lot of attention when you commute, so we decided to recommend the JAYS a-Jays One for earphones and the Urbanears Zinken for headphones – packing clean designs without compromising audio quality. (Budget: Php1,799USD 31INR 2,599EUR 29CNY 223 – Php7,950USD 135INR 11,485EUR 129CNY 987)

Now, for extra, in case you’re one to need speakers in school for dance practices and such, we recommend the JBL Charge, all because of its loud quality audio and its inclusion of a power bank inside for your long school schedules. If you want something half the price and smaller with splash resistance for those rainy days, you can check out the Braven 440. (Budget: Php3,650USD 62INR 5,273EUR 59CNY 453 – Php7,995USD 136INR 11,550EUR 130CNY 992)

Tablets & Laptops

Before anything else, you should think about it well – whether you need a tablet or a laptop. Tablets will get only half the work done, but maybe that’s all you need, not to mention it’s a lot more portable. In that case, you can always look at the Nexus 7s and the iPad Minis, depending on your preference for specs. If you want something smaller, take an iPod Touch. If you need phone functionality, there’s the Asus FonePad 7, if you need a stylus, there’s the Galaxy Note tablets, and if you need something that goes beyond the usual tablet’s power, there’s the Microsoft Surface. (Budget: Php5,995USD 102INR 8,660EUR 97CNY 744 – Php60,000USD 1,022INR 86,676EUR 974CNY 7,446)

Again, portability being a priority, you can’t go wrong with a MacBook Air. Now if you need a little more power with CD drives, Asus has their X series of laptops and Acer has their Aspire E1 series – both very capable. We wouldn’t recommend buying anything more expensive and powerful as that is usually more than what an average student needs. We have desktops at home and labs at school for anything heavier.

Note: Netbooks and any laptop with less than 4GB RAM may no longer cut it. (Budget: Php20,000USD 341INR 28,892EUR 325CNY 2,482 – Php50,000USD 852INR 72,230EUR 812CNY 6,205)

Accessories

They might be just accessories, but you might want / need them.

• Get a USB for flash storage, an external hard drive for more as you should expect that you’ll be copying lots of files from time to time.
• If you don’t like putting out your smartphone very often in public, try a Pebble smartwatch, or any other notification-enabled watch compatible with your smartphone.
• A laser pointer can be quite handy for presentations.
• Pocket WiFi, because your school probably has some useful (and distracting) sites blocked.

(Budget: Php100USD 2INR 144EUR 2CNY 12 – Php8,000USD 136INR 11,557EUR 130CNY 993)

Travel

For the university students out there, if you don’t want to commute, you can drive and if you have a license already, we recommend getting a Chevrolet Spark as it’s really capable and affordable starting at Php548,888USD 9,353INR 792,924EUR 8,908CNY 68,117. If travel isn’t your thing, you’ve probably got a place to stay in near the campus already. If you can, get a jet ski or a helicopter somewhere nearby. You don’t wanna be stranded when a flood comes and your school / city suspends classes too late.

That’s about it for our list of gadgets to help you through getting back to school. Just in case you might be wondering where smartphones are in this list, we’ll leave that up to your personal preference as we’ll have more lists for that to follow soon.

Study hard and stay in school!