Back To School Technology Buyer's Guide
by Zach Throckmorton on August 4, 2011 8:55 PM ESTPrinters
The second peripheral every college student should consider buying is a printer. You might have easy access to a printer in your dorm, or the nearest campus lab might be a hike from your apartment. And you might not finish your paper until 3am, and it might be the end of December and your northern campus is getting hammered by a snowstorm—doing that once was enough to motivate me to save up enough money for a printer!
Printers come in three basic types: laser, inkjet, and all-in-ones. All-in-ones combine a copier, scanner, and printer (either a laser or inkjet) into one device. Inkjet printers are usually the least expensive initially, but the cost of printing (the ink cartridges) is usually higher per page than laser printers. Laser printers can sometimes be quite inexpensive, and while toner cartridges cost more than ink cartridges, they last much longer. The majority of printing done by college students is black and white text, and for that reason, I recommend laser printers over inkjet printers. However, if you won’t be printing that much (say, less than 100 pages per month), an inkjet printer is a viable solution. I particularly like all-in-ones because they often aren’t that much more expensive than dedicated printers and being able to copy and scan at home means fewer trips to the computing center or library—and not getting nickle and dimed for those services, as most colleges charge a per-page fee for them.
Canon's PIXMA ip2702 is an inexpensive inkjet at $34 that can handle occasional printing with ease. Spending more money on a dedicated inkjet printer can yield additional features like wireless printing and higher quality picture printing, but durability and reliability general don't start to improve until you shell out $200+ on a prosumer or commercial grade inkjet. For mostly black and white text, cheaper inkjets are just as good as cheap inkjets.
If you'll be printing out hundreds of pages of text per month, Brother's HL-2240D and Samsung's ML-2525 are great budget options. Both can occasionally be found on sale for $50 or less. Neither of these models are built like tanks, but if you take care of them, they'll last for years (I still use a Samsung ML-2010 that I bought in 2006). Like inkjets, spending more money on a laser printer might mean faster printing, wireless printing, and/or more capacious toner cartridges, but again, these features are not necessary for most college students.
Finally, Canon's PIXMA MP495 and imageCLASS MF4350d are inkjet and laser (respectively) all-in-ones. The MP495 is compact in size and also features wireless printing, while the MF4350d is physically larger (though its footprint is not terribly large, unlike many dedicated scanners). The MP495 is currently on sale for less than $60, so unless you're very budget-conscious, the added scanning and copying capabilities are definitely worth the $20 extra compared to the PIXMA ip2702. At less than $100, the MF4250d is very competitively priced compared to other laserjet all-in-ones. Regardless of whether you use a dedicated inkjet or laser printer, or some sort of all-in-one, keep in mind that you can dramatically lower printing costs by refilling ink and toner cartridges.
If you'd rather read papers, book chapters, and assignments on a portable device than printing out sheet after sheet of paper, we cover tablets and ereaders on the next page.
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rageguy34 - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
I'm surprised that you would even mention USB keys given how easy they are to lose or an external hard drive seeing as how they can also get lost or have a mechanical failure. Every student should use dropbox or another alternative if not only for cloud storage but for the version history on document saves as wellbrshoemak - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
Losing a USB key is not the fault of the hardware. External drives, like anything else can fail. I agree that Dropbox (or like services) should be a part of a student storage plan but other methods of data redundancy are fine. Keep in mind there are times where you need to go to campus computer labs to print certain specialized documents or need color laser prints, most students aren't rocking color lasers in their dorm rooms. Those lab PC's are locked down so you have no way to install Dropbox to get your files - a flash drive is required in those instances, so they can't be totally discounted.zshift - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
Dropbox has a web interface. I haven't used a flash drive since I created my Dropbox account, and it provides multiple points of backup if you use it on multiple computers. For a student, the spacing limitations shouldn't be too much trouble, especially since referrals net the user extra space. Last I checked, docs, presentations, spreadsheets, and even a few songs or pics here and there don't fill up my Dropbox. I have 2 years worth of material on there, accessible from anywhere I can get an internet connection. Plus, I've lost every flash drive I've ever owned.Zoomer - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
A flash drive is so much faster than mucking around with some web interface, particularly when the paper is due in -10 minutes.nickb64 - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
I bought a 16GB USB Key last year because my school blocked the dropbox domain, and I got it on sale on Amazon for $20, which I felt was a pretty good deal, since it was only a dollar more than the 8GB model by the same company.I can access Amazon Cloud Storage from school, but it's a pain in the ass to keep it and Dropbox with the same files in case I need them. Having something in Dropbox is useless if I have to use it in a lab where I don't have access to the Dropbox site.
I just bought a 4-pack of 4GB USB keys because my old 2GB one was too small for my sister's needs, and I can keep various utilities on another in case I need to use them to help someone I know with a computer issue. Also, they were really cheap.
nafhan - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
Different students are going to have different storage needs. Dropbox will be fine for Word Docs (and has other advantages, as you mentioned), but someone working with large media files will need at least a thumb drive or a mechanical hard drive to get enough space.Procurion - Monday, August 8, 2011 - link
Cloud....meh....I call it pie-in-the-sky. I choose to remain in control of my programs and my privacy, not relenquish it to an unknown group of for profit individuals. Anyone remember Wikileaks???? Nothing on the intenet is "safe".Nataku - Friday, August 5, 2011 - link
no offense, but cloud storage just isn't be all end all solutionthere are plenty of reasons, but to name just a few
- >1GB file download or USB transfer? USB is a hell a lot more faster
- firewall blockage + paranoid IT security will own you when u thought u could download ur powerpoint for the presentation happening in 5 min
- no internet connection --> hey my school kept printing stations off the net so u have to use USB drives
- entering ur username/password on a pub PC that may have keylogger and ur dropbox account having personal stuff, (self video of triple x stuff.. j/k lol)
StormyParis - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
As a student, I worked at the Computer Lab. That was back in 5"1/4 floppies day, but the broad 50% of people coming in about lost/corrupted/destroyed data or equipment has stayed about the same.So please kids, do backups. And remember, backups are
- offline, so a virus (or a pissed ex) that wipes your stuff can't get to your backups.
- offsite, so the thief that empties your dorm room nor the idiot that drowns it can get to it
- several, because of murphy's law: your backup will go bad the day your laptop gets stolen.
- tested, because quite often you think you're backuping stuff only to realize that your app does not pout its docs in the user directory.
Also, buy cheap stuff. I know youngsters always need ego-boosters, and branded overskill tech stuff is a nice personnality crutch. Keep in ming though, that it's a waste of money, it's likelier to get stolen, it makes it worse when it's stolen / damaged... and, really, you should try being what you do, not what you own.
techhhhhhy - Thursday, August 4, 2011 - link
I'm sorry, but this was clearly written by someone who doesn't go to college and doesn't know what's right for a campus.There is no way, 0 chance that you can use a desktop on a college campus / dorm. Does it work? Yes but it is absolutely retarded idea.
I could have made this article in 1 page. Get a 15" or less laptop, 13" is ideal. Portability is key in college. If you can afford it get a Macbook because this is what 75% of your classmates will have.