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

The 15-inch MacBook Air with Apple’s latest M4 chip delivers nearly 15 hours of battery life and weighs 3.3 pounds. It’s fast, portable, and well-suited for everyday use. Apple also sells a 13-inch M4 version, which we haven’t yet tested, but previous 13-inch MacBook Air models have consistently been top performers. Travelers may find the smaller model a better fit due to its lighter weight—and, of course, it costs less, too.

The Lenovo Yoga Slim 7i may be a good choice for college students on the go. It lasted longer than most other laptops of its size in web browsing battery tests, at almost 20 hours. The screen shows a wide range of colors that appear accurate in display tests. Performance speeds are quick for complex productivity work, and are able to handle most demanding tasks.

The 14-inch HP OmniBook Ultra Flip just dropped $50 compared to recent weeks. It’s a smart pick, especially for digital artists who like the idea of a convertible laptop that effectively doubles as a tablet. It includes a responsive touchscreen and stylus, making it a strong option for drawing, sketching, and note-taking on the go. At only 2.9 pounds, it’s also one of the more portable picks for content creators without sacrificing creative performance.

Samsung’s Galaxy Book5 Pro 360 has dropped $50 since last week. This is a premium 2-in-1 laptop that flips between tablet and clamshell modes with ease. It features a gorgeous OLED touchscreen, a thin-and-light build, and long battery life.

The 16-inch Gram Pro, which often retails for $2,400, was recently selling for $2,100, but just dropped $200. LG’s Gram line of notebooks has consistently scored among the top laptops in our labs since it debuted nearly a decade ago. This model offers very fast performance and a 17-plus-hour battery life. Of course, given that it’s called the Gram, you’d be correct in assuming it’s quite lightweight as well.

This model may not have “Gaming” in its name, but it should deliver a solid streaming experience. It has a 16-inch display and a big, comfortable keyboard, complete with RGB lighting that makes typing in the dark easier and more colorful. The display supports a refresh rate of up to 120Hz, which can make games appear silky smooth in motion.

If you’re looking for a low-cost option, this might be it, especially because the price dropped $50 in the last two weeks. The Galaxy Chromebook Go has a solid battery life of almost 13 hours for web browsing (and nearly 8 hours for more demanding tasks), and our testers said the keyboard is comfortable to use as well. Performance is about average, and the display is merely so-so, but as long as you treat this as a low-cost productivity device rather than the only computer you’ll ever need, you should be okay.

It’s a small discount, but it’s one of the best Chromebooks under $300.

Looking for an iPad? This 2025 entry-level model is our pick as the best tablet for most people. It has a beautiful 10.9-inch display, 128GB of storage, and the ability to record HD video. And its battery lasts a decently long time in our testing: 14 hours during video playback and 9 hours browsing the web.

If you’re looking for a tablet to do simple tasks, the Amazon Fire Max 11 is a solid pick. The device has an 11-inch display and is powerful enough to stream Netflix or Disney+, play simple games like Minecraft, and scroll through social media. It weighs just over 1 pound and has a battery that lasts an impressive 13.3 hours in our web-browsing test. You also get 64GB of built-in storage.

If you want a smaller, lighter, and even less expensive Amazon Fire tablet than the Fire Max 11, the Amazon Fire HD 8 (gen 12) is a good alternative. In our tests, its performance and camera both receive sub-par scores, and the display quality is only middling. But if you plan to use a tablet for just the basics, the Amazon Fire HD 8 could do the trick, while saving you money.

The Anker Nano is particularly pint-sized, at just 3.6 ounces. It receives solid marks for charging speed, both when it’s charging a device and when it’s being recharged at the wall. And it has two USB-C ports, including a foldable male USB-C port you can plug directly into your phone—no connecting cable needed. The Anker Nano only has enough capacity to fully charge an average smartphone from zero battery about once, or to top it off a few times, so this wouldn’t be the charger to take on a days-long trip. But it does have handy LED lights that show you its battery status, so you know when it’s time to plug it back into an outlet.

This compact, budget-friendly charger can be handy to toss in your kid’s backpack, especially if they need something that connects via USB-C. It’s roughly the size of a credit card and has two USB-A ports as well as a USB-C port, so it can charge three devices simultaneously. Iniu claims it can charge a pair of AirPods Pro over 10 times on a single charge and an iPhone 13 nearly twice.

The Bose Quiet Comfort earbuds sit near the top of our ratings, with really satisfying sound and exceptional active noise cancellation. Bose headphones also earn top marks from our members for predicted reliability and owner satisfaction. It’s a modest discount, but they don’t go on sale often, so it’s definitely worth a look if you don’t want to wait for the $50 discount that tends to come up during bigger sales.

The Sonos Ace is the company’s first headphone, and our testers find this minimalist model to be a top performer. Its noise-cancellation is first-rate, and it also ranks near the top of our sound quality rankings. Fit-wise, it is less-than-great for some users with large heads.

JBL Tune 510BT headphones feel like they’re built with quality in mind: They’re cheap, but they don’t seem cheap. This Bluetooth model delivers pretty good sound quality, it has a 40-hour advertised battery life, and we’ve seen it selling at remarkably low prices. The 510BT sits on the ears, which some people find more comfortable than being engulfed by the more common over-ear style. As an extra perk, you can also use them with a cable if you forget to charge them.

The Apple iMac is one of the best-known all-in-one desktop computers, so it’s no surprise that this latest model, featuring the company’s new M3 processor, is among the most capable you can buy.  In addition to the M3, it has 8GB of memory and 256GB of solid-state storage. The 24-inch built-in display aces our tests, with our testers noting that it’s able to produce bright and accurate colors. The display also has a special coating to help reduce glare, which is especially helpful, for example, when you’re working in a home office with nearby windows that let sunlight into the room.

This iMac supports WiFi 6, includes a wireless mouse and keyboard, and has several different ports for connecting external peripherals like printers and thumb drives.

This HP model has an Intel Core i5 processor, 12 gigabytes of memory, and 512 gigabytes of solid-state storage. It’s a good value, according to our testers, offering fast performance for routine productivity tasks, but it’s not ideal for challenging fare like editing video or playing games.

The model comes with a wireless mouse and keyboard, eight USB ports, and a gigabit Ethernet port. It only supports WiFi 5, though, so you might consider adding a WiFi 6 or WiFi 7 USB adapter (typically available for under $50) to improve connectivity.

The Mac Mini is perfect for students who will be spending most of their time in a web browser like Safari or Chrome, editing office documents, or conducting video calls. The model runs on Apple’s homegrown M2 Pro processor and has 16GB of memory and 512GB of solid-state storage. Like the Mac Studio, it doesn’t come with a mouse or keyboard. It supports WiFi 6.

The price for this Brother all-in-one cartridge inkjet printer has jumped up $10 since last week. It comes with an integrated scanner and copier and makes for a reasonable pick if you’re on a budget. We don’t typically love inkjet printers that take cartridges—they tend to be less reliable and more costly to use over time compared to laser printers—but this Brother model comes recommended by our experts and performs reasonably well when it comes to text and graphics quality, as well as its speed when printing text.

The main thing that the Canon PIXMA TS7720, an all-in-one inkjet, has going for it is its price. It’s been selling for $99 for a long time, but now it’s discounted significantly, making it a great time to buy (it was recently $20 less, but this is still a nice discount). The real street price is closer to $100 than the original $150, but you’re still getting nice savings here. Our estimate of ink cost is $68 a year, pretty typical for a cartridge printer. The lab results it turns in are decent, not extraordinary.

If you’re serious about doing a lot of high-quality printing in color—say, you’re a small business owner or a graphic designer—our experts suggest a color laser printer. This Canon model prints beautifully, it’s relatively inexpensive for a color laser model, and the estimated toner cost is reasonably low compared with the competition’s. Keep in mind that the unit is quite large for a home office, though.

If you print in color frequently enough to justify buying an inkjet printer, consider a model that will save you money in the long run, especially when it’s on sale. The Epson ET-2800 tank printer has a reservoir you can refill with low-cost bottled ink instead of expensive ink cartridges. It uses only about $5 worth of ink a year, according to our estimates, instead of the $70 or more you might have to pay for a cartridge model. Those ongoing savings make the Epson’s purchase price far more palatable and give it a two-year cost of ownership that’s at the top of its class.

The ET-2800’s overall performance isn’t strong enough to earn a CR recommendation. But the text quality and speed are decent and should be fine for home use. The model doesn’t excel at printing photos, charts, or graphics; it does those jobs about as well as any ink-stingy inkjet.

If you’re looking to future-proof your home network, the Netgear Orbi 770 is a top-performing WiFi 7 router worth a look. It delivers excellent speeds in our tests, even at longer ranges, and setup is refreshingly simple. Security protections are solid, but privacy settings could be better. Last week, we saw this router discounted to $600, but $549.99 still represents a good deal.

Tech editor Chris Raymond has his finger on the pulse of all things tech, and he found the mesh router he uses in his own home at a discount during the sale.

"I bought this mesh router system back when I started working at home full-time, and it still makes me smile. It’s inexpensive (especially at this price), easy to set up (using the TP-Link mobile app), and effectively eliminates the WiFi dead spots in my modest-sized home. In fact, I even get a reliable signal on the backyard patio now."

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.