Back To School Buying Guide 2022: Headphones, Bags, and More!

MicroCenterOfficial

Written by Sean Mekinda

Summer is drawing to a close and more and more families are hitting the stores to buy this year’s school supplies for their children. Sure, everybody will need pencils, notebooks, and binders, but in an increasingly technical world, they might just need a little bit more than that. With a full ninety-eight percent of schools in the United States having computers for their students at some level, it is likely that your child will need some degree of technology in order to fully engage in their educational experience. 

What tech accessories should I buy for my child?

Good question! There are a few key accessories that any child, regardless of age or technological proficiency, could likely benefit from in a school setting. 

Headphones

Whether your child uses their devices every day at school or occasionally visits the computer lab, you’ll likely want to send them to school with their own headphones. Wired headphones are ideal, as they can be used in all contexts, and with very little teacher assistance. Additionally, buying your child their own headphones will help ensure they don’t have to swap wearables with any of their peers. Now, more than ever, this is important for keeping your child safe and healthy at school. 

If you’re not quite sure what to get, we recommend the Logitech USB H540 Wired Headset. The H540 offer sound and durability, as well as a variety of useful, daily-life features. In particular, we like the extra padding, to prevent headaches during long computer projects, the on-ear sound controls, and the noise-canceling microphone. We’re certainly not hoping for another bout of distance learning, but if it did have to happen, these would keep your conversations and your student’s class participation separate. 

Microphones

Although your in-person learner might not need a microphone as much, if your child is participating in any form of digital learning this year, a microphone could be a huge blessing to them and their teacher. After all, you wouldn’t want your student not getting enough credit for participation because all their teacher can hear is static, would you?

 

If you’re looking for an affordable, but still decent quality option, we recommend the Audio-Technica Lavalier Microphone. A simple, clip-on option, this microphone will help improve your child’s audio quality in class without breaking the bank. 

Cases

We want to write this section in bold, bright red font. If your child’s school lends them a device, make the right choice and buy a case to protect the device. The last thing you want to be saddled with is a bill for a school tablet that got drowned in chocolate milk in the lunchroom, we promise you. 

Better to spend a little bit up front and protect that device with a Targus Safe Fit Universal Case. This case offers a tight fit and shock absorbing corners that will keep your child’s devices safe even in the messiest of backpacks. 

Backpacks

Speaking of backpacks, we don’t even need to tell you why your child needs one of these. What we do need to tell you is that it’s worth the up-front investment to buy a slightly nicer backpack that won’t be ripping at the seams by Thanksgiving. We know the neon Roblox backpack looks cool now, but you just won’t love it the same when the bottom rips out a few months in. 

That’s why we recommend the Wenger MarieBelle Backpack. Not only is it stylish, but it’s up for the task of carrying about as many textbooks as your child or college student can cram inside of it. It has a stabilizing base and multiple pockets, for the attempts you may make to teach your child to organize their school supplies. Best of all, it has pass through straps for suitcases. This means that this backpack can double as a carry-on anytime you need to travel with your child.

Computers

Now, this is definitely hitting the opposite end of the spectrum, but let’s say you’re helping prepare your child to hit the road for college, rather than getting ready for their first day of school. If that’s the stage of life you’re in, it’s more than likely that you’ve considered purchasing a laptop. 

We can’t tell you enough how critical a laptop is for college success. Between classes that have students navigate to their syllabi through web platforms, cost-saving online textbooks, and group projects that require online collaboration, a laptop is a critical supply for any college-bound student. That’s why we recommend the Samsung Chromebook. Equipped with the ability to connect to Internet quickly, a larger than average screen, and a battery that can last for up to ten hours, this laptop will get your college student through every class and then some. 

If you’re looking for more computer recommendations, check out our Back-To-School Desktop guide and keep an eye on the Micro Center Community for our Back-To-School laptop buying guide, coming soon!

Get Ready for Back to School with Micro Center

Your local Micro Center is happy to help you get through back-to-school season as painlessly as possible. With an immense array of options and the knowledge to walk you through your tech questions, we’re committed to helping you get your child the tech they need to make the new school year a success.

More from the Micro Center Community:

Looking for more information about tech buying? We’ve got Community sections dedicated to buying guides and reviews, as well as buying guides for Back-To-School Computers and Build-Your-Own Computers. And if you can’t find what you’re looking for, don’t hesitate to post a new discussion and the Community will be happy to help!

Rye_Bread

A lot of folks give Chromebooks a bad rap because they seem a little too simplified. Especially for students, I find them to be extremely attractive options. Most schoolwork is done on websites or in the Microsoft Office suite, both of which the Chromebook is more than capable of handling. Not to mention that they tend to fit comfortably into most budgets.

Great little machines if your workload fits within its capabilities.

ChaosDTV

laptops in todays standards is such a high priority its insane at this point. Most parents or college students do not have the budget to shell out 1k worth of money towards a brand new high end laptop so a chromebook is definitely the way to go. For handling super simple features like school work or anything school can throw at you a chromebook is the right choice. I know most people dont like chrome os but for most college kids with a tight budget its definitely not a bad choice

Julia_V

My personal experience with Chromebooks is that they had insane battery life for using things like Google Drive - Docs, Sheets, and Slides. Not only are they a good budget option, I think they also take away distractions while trying to get work done. I personally had a Chromebook for a while just to write papers and do light browsing of the web.

Yingdong

Just get a capable windows laptop at ~$400. Cheaper Chromebooks has this cheap build keyboard, unstable legacy wifi and bluetooth, and zero expandability with soldered ram, soldered emmc memory and soldered OS(many using legacy boot process that can not, or at least buggy when try to install windows or even linux). Not the mention the blurry and low brightness 720p display which is a torture to your eyes not only when browsing videos but also when you typing or reading the text. What about the better Chromebooks? Oh, they are actually more expensive than a very capable windows laptop!

Look at this:

https://www.microcenter.com/product/647194/hp-envy-13-ba1063cl-133-laptop-computer-refurbished-silver

A 13 inch very portable laptop with a 11th gen quad core i5, 16gb ram and 512 gb upgradable ssd!

If you can't afford a $450 laptop, at least look at this one: https://www.microcenter.com/product/646666/hp-15-ef1033ca-156-laptop-computer-refurbished-silver

This HP laptop@$279 at the time of writing has already fallen into the price range of mainstream Chromebooks. 3150u is probably not a very powerful cpu, but is still more powerful than the celeron n4000/4020/3020, while the power on time wouldn't suffer much since it also has a bigger battery. most Chromebook uses. look at that 2 upgradable sodimm ram slots! The 8gb ram and 512 GB ssd it comes with! And in comparison the chromebooks has this 2gb/4gb soldered ram and 32gb/64gb ECC memory that is just pale in comparison.

If you really hate microsoft windows that much, you can just wipe the drive and install the chrome OS flex yourself.