Best Back-to-School Deals on Laptops, Headphones, and More Tech

The Asus Vivobook 16 isn’t flashy, but it covers the basics really well, especially for this price. It gets top marks for portability and ergonomics, making it a great pick for students or remote workers who value comfort and a lightweight build. Performance and display are average, but with a roomy 16-inch screen and solid all-around versatility, it’s a strong value at this discount.

The Samsung Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 was $80 more at the start of July. This is a premium 2-in-1 with a 360-degree hinge that lets you rotate the screen for use as a traditional laptop or a tablet, knocking out a report at your desk or sketching notes on the couch. The bundled stylus is handy for handwriting and drawing. Thin, light, and built to last a full workday away from an outlet, this is the sort of machine that earns its keep if you’re frequently on the move or travel for work. It sits at the higher end of our laptop ratings, so you’re paying for the flexibility and the display quality.

The Acer Chromebook Plus Spin 714 has a 14-inch screen that you can fold back to use as a tablet. Its display is brighter than most, which makes it ideal for reading outside on a sunny day. That said, its battery life is longer than that of many other Chromebooks, lasting 15.75 hours in web browsing tests and 12 hours in video playback. Performance speeds are among the top in our rated Chromebooks, making this a great pick for a variety of uses.

The Samsung Galaxy Tab S11 is impressive when it comes to everything from speed to camera quality. The 11-inch screen is bright and sharp. The battery lasts a convenient 11.1 hours when browsing the web and 15.7 hours when playing video, making it a great choice for studying and unwinding alike. Overall, it’s a top-notch tablet, though with a premium price to match. So this discount is certainly an advantage.

For all of the popularity of Apple’s AirPods, these are rather unusual. Lacking the padded ear tips that plug your ear canals, they don’t offer much passive noise cancellation, but they do have reasonably effective noise-canceling tech. And so, you can elect to turn the noise-canceling feature off and hear what’s going on around you, which can be great when you’re on a run or walking on a busy street. In terms of sound and fit, the buds are very similar to the regular 4th-gen. AirPods. We’ve seen them as low as $99, but only during major sales like Prime Day and Black Friday.

Have a teen who loves to run outside? The Bose Ultra Opens are a unique option that let them stay aware of your surroundings. They hook on your ear, just above the lobe, kind of like a cuff-style earring. They sound surprisingly good, too, once you get the placement just right. And it’s totally easy to hear things around you with a clarity that the "transparency" mode of most earbuds can’t match.

Beats headphones are sleek, and they sound good too. The over-ear Beats Studio Pro get top marks for noise reduction, making them perfect for anyone who wants to lock in at the gym, get some serious work done, or just tune out the world for a little while. And the sound quality rated 4 out of 5 in our tests too, so you’ll be able to immerse yourself in your favorite songs.

The Sony ULT Field 1 is a great speaker to toss in a backpack to hang out on the quad or for an after-school hangout in the backyard. It’s pleasant sounding with a strong impactful bass. It doesn’t play super loud, but that’s largely a function of its modest size. It boasts an IP 67 rating, which means it’s well sealed from sand and dirt, and can take a modest dunking. 

Portable wireless speakers often take a beating, rattling around in the bottom of a backpack or getting knocked off a picnic table—all of which argues for a modestly priced speaker like the JBL Flip 7. The model boasts decent bass, adequate volume, and satisfying sound quality. The 12-hour battery life claimed by JBL is long enough for even your epic 81-song Abba to ZZ Top playlist. And with an IPX7 rating, the Flip 7 is not only splashproof and spillproof but also totally dunkable, according to the manufacturer. One other cool feature: If you buy the Flip 7 from JBL, you can have it personalized, choosing the color and printing your own image or text on the grill.

Sold as a three-piece mesh system, this TP-Link Deco model offers outstanding value, balancing wide coverage with a lower price. It scores very well in our tests, as it’s simple to install and provides a strong, secure signal that can cover a large, multistory home. The system includes six Ethernet ports across the three units—handy for hardwiring key devices—but doesn’t include any USB ports. This model supports WiFi 6, making it a smart and highly effective upgrade for most families.

This is a good deal on a wireless router that does quite well in our ratings. It’s not a mesh router, but if a single-unit router is sufficient to envelop your home in WiFi, this one should do a good job. Our testers note high speeds (technically referred to as “throughput”) across near, medium, and far distances, as well as useful features like automatic firmware updating (which helps keep you and your data safe) and the ability to manage everything from a smartphone app.

Our testers often sing the praises of black-and-white laser printers, especially for anyone who prints a lot of text documents and not much else. The models are more reliable and far cheaper to use than a standard color inkjet. This model from Canon produces crisp, clear text and does it fast. It has auto-duplexing for easy two-sided printing and wireless printing, so you don’t have to plug your laptop into the unit. Plus, it’s compact enough to fit nicely in a small space.

If you’re looking to invest in an all-in-one printer capable of serving a small office, this Canon laser is a smart choice. It prints top-notch text, and quickly. It has an integrated scanner, copier, and fax machine, plus automatic two-sided printing. It doesn’t excel at printing graphics, but that’s to be expected with a black-and-white laser. The good news is, along with these upfront savings, you’ll also spend relatively little over time on toner as laser printers have significantly lower operational costs than traditional inkjets.

If you want a reasonably low-cost home printer that can produce clear and crisp text documents at a clip, this black-and-white Canon imageCLASS LBP122dw laser printer earns our stamp of approval. Canon laser printers are also particularly reliable, according to survey data of CR members, which means they’re less likely to give you grief later on. This model doesn’t scan or copy, though.

The Apple Pencil USB-C is generally accurate and smooth, making it a good choice for sketching and note-taking. But it’s slightly less sensitive than the Apple Pencil Pro and less responsive than the Gen 2, which makes it somewhat harder to control. It offers palm rejection (so your hand won’t interfere while drawing) and tilt support, which allows for realistic shading and pencil-like strokes.  This model doesn’t support pressure sensitivity, meaning the thickness of your lines won’t vary based on how hard you press down. That can be a drawback for digital artists, but many creative apps allow you to manually adjust brush size or weight, so pro-level work is still possible, albeit with more manual input. The other trade-off is that the stylus charges and pairs via the USB-C port rather than the wireless charging and pairing of the Pro or 2nd Gen model. It can attach to the side of your iPad for easy storage, though.

To go with the iPad, this Digiroot stylus is a reasonably low-cost option if you just want to take notes or doodle. But it’s a bit challenging to control if you’re looking to create detailed art, our reviewer says. It’s prone to leaving erroneous marks, which she had to clean up. It offers palm rejection and tilt support, but no pressure sensitivity. The model charges via USB-C and doesn’t require pairing. Just turn it on and write away. And, unlike some other third-party options, this one can magnetically attach to the side of an iPad.