Last Updated on July 7, 2018
Laptops and smartphones are, without doubt, the nerve center of any college dorm room. As full-fledged computing devices, they help the student with a variety of needs for both work and play. Nevertheless, there's a lot that can be done to round out the functionality that these devices offer. The right accessories can make for efficient study and lots of play. Once you decide what is needed, you can save money on your purchases.
A quality personal printer
Colleges certainly do offer students free access to central printers in the library or the dorm. These printer stations tend to be crowded, though, making access difficult. Scan and print jobs for lots of students do tend to take time.
Since high-quality printers are extremely affordable today, there is no reason for anyone to need to depend on a communal machine. An all-in-one unit that does scanning, printing and photocopying can be excellent idea. With brands such as Brother, it isn't even necessary to go after cheap, re-manufactured cartridges. It should be easy to find a supplier of Brother ink cartridges online for dorm delivery.
High-quality noise cancellation headphones
You wouldn't normally put high-end sound equipment on your kid's list of must-have equipment for college; a dorm room is no place for loud entertainment, after all. Noise cancellation headphones, though, are a winning idea. If you haven't tried noise-cancellation headphones in years, you need to pick up a pair. Not only do they keep out continuous, predictable noise such as you might find in an airplane cabin, they do an admirable job with unpredictable and intermittent noise such as speech and music, as well. Since college dorms tend to be noisy places, such headphones can be useful to create an island of peace with for sleep or study.
Note-taking devices
As useful as laptops can be for taking notes with, they can be too large, and too inflexible. It can be hard to use a laptop to draw diagrams on, for instance, even if you have one of the new touch-enabled models.
While smartphones and tablets can be useful for drawing on, they can be hard to type with. Note-taking devices are more popular than ever today, then, as add-ons to smartphones and tablets. iOS devices tend to have the strongest support for digital pens such as the Lightscribe 3. These are excellent devices to draw, write and annotate with. Everything written down is instantly digitized into text.
Data protection
Data stored on laptops is hardly safe. Laptops get damaged all the time — they are easy to drop, to spill liquid into or simply to leave around, and have stolen. Not a mention, laptop hard drives tend to be unreliable. From cloud storage to personal storage, there are plenty of options. In general, though, portable hard drives tend to make a poor choice, even if they are cheap and capacious. They are too easy to drop. Thumb drives and cloud storage subscriptions are a lot more sensible.
A gaming console
Gaming consoles such as Xbox and PlayStation offer multiple entertainment choices, and can be excellent all-in-one devices for the dorm room. With multiple generations of device to choose from, there's usually one for most budgets.
A media player
Not everyone is into video games. For those who love movies and television shows as a way to relax, a streaming device such as the Roku or Chromecast can be the perfect choice. Good, legal sources of entertainment are important — students will often try out the illegal peer-to-peer lifestyle without it, which is a risky bet.
About the Author
John Sollars is a business owner of many years. When he gets the time, he likes to sit down and share what has worked for him. Look for his informative posts on a number of websites and blogs today.
