Any student will know how life-saving gadgets can be when it comes to studying. The great news is that this market is continually expanding as clever people (definitely more so than I) develop increasingly good ways to help students stay focused and productive.
Suppose you’re struggling to study while at college, we’re here to help. We’ve compiled a list of the best study gadgets for college students for you to explore.
How we curated our Best Study Gadgets list
As the founder of Taughtup, I make sure that I went out and spoke to real people in my social circle (thanks Covid) what their opinions are on the best study gadgets for college students.
Some of the people asked are ex students (college experience outside of a pandemic), and students currently studying a bachelors, or masters program to get their advice on what they feel are total game changers for them.
As you know, prices and availability change, especially as Amazon runs various promotions, but as the time of writing, all prices are correct and all products are currently available via amazon.com.
No. 1: Mophie Juice Pack Phone Charging Case
For many students, their phone is their life. They use it in class, between class, and when going out with friends. They also use it to set alarms, keep their notes organized, record college lectures, and for a myriad of other things.
Low battery is a real drag for students, and many will find that their phone is low and they’ve forgotten their charger at critical moments.
The Mophie Juice Pack phone charging case overcomes that problem, offering massively improved battery life and smart charging. It will stop your phone from trying to charge when it’s fully charged, saving energy. It also provides your phone with an excellent protective case, and easily belongs on our list of best study gadgets.
This specific case is for the iPhone X,, but there are others if you have an older phone or are lucky enough to have the new iphone 13 model
mophie 401004409 Juice Pack Access – Ultra-Slim Wireless Charging Battery Case, Amazon Price / $44.00
No. 2: External Hard Drive
The amount of students who lose critical college essays or important class notes because they don’t back their work up and then something happens to their laptops is incredible.
It would be best if you always kept work backed up to an external source so you can access it should anything happen to your laptop. If you don’t want to be redoing your college essay from scratch and explaining to your professor why it’s late, this is only sensible.
If you don’t want to lug a clunky external hard drive around with you all the time, consider a thumb drive. You can get some with very generous amounts of storage, and they will add a centimeter, barely, to your laptop’s dimensions. Just be careful you put it somewhere safe if you take it out of the computer.
As far as hard drives go though, one that we recommend whole-heartedly though is the WD (Western Digital) My Passport HDD. This hard drive offer good storage space, a 3.2 gen 1 USB input including cable for upto 5gb/s transfer rate (pretty swift) and 256-bit AES encryption to keep all that important college work safe.
If you want something even faster, one that i bought for more advanced projeccts is the Adata SE900 SSD with up to 20GB/s transfer rates for when you just need blistering speed with USB 3.2 gen 2+2.
WD 2TB My Passport Ultra Blue Portable External Hard Drive HDD , Amazon Price / $64.71
No. 3: Sunrise Alarm Clock
Nobody likes getting up early, and if you’ve been partying all night, it is that much harder to wake up, let alone function during your classes or study in your dorm. No gadget in the world can completely counteract sleep loss, but a sunrise alarm clock will make waking up a bit gentler and simpler and honestly is by far one of the best study gadgets money can buy, because you can’t study if you not awake.
Related: I Switched to a Sunrise Alarm Clock, and I’m No Longer Dreading Early Wake-up Calls
The clock will provide a red glow that gradually shifts into a white light, gently and naturally waking you up over a period of time, rather than all at once. This is much kinder to tired you and may prove a godsend to tired and hungover you.
Many versions of this clock also come with a radio option if you like to listen to something while waking up.
Light Sunrise Alarm Clock, Amazon Price / $42. 98
No. 4: E-Reader
Number four on our list of the best study gadgets for college students is an e-reader, and our choice for this category is: The Kindle Paperwhite. You might love physical books, but you will be happy about only having to carry one slim, light device instead of all your books, especially if you’re studying a course that has a lot of textbooks.
You will also enjoy several other significant benefits. As long as you don’t forget your e-reader, you don’t need to worry about remembering much else, except perhaps a pen and paper.
The Kindle Paperwhite has numerous benefits over it’s peers including, more storage capacity, a longer battery life, waterproofing, and the option to upgrade to cellular capability
You can also make notes on most e-readers, saving you from keeping a separate notepad for your books or having to remember to bring it.
Kindle Paperwhite Essentials Bundle including Kindle Paperwhite, Amazon Price / $169.97
No. 5: The Evernote App
If you like to write your notes, you may hit a problem rather than typing them. Transferring them to your laptop is the best way to keep notes organized and manageable, and it also means you can share notes with friends easily and find them when you’re writing an essay.
Related: How to use Evernote to organize your life
You won’t get to class and find you’ve forgotten the piece of paper you wrote on last time, and you won’t have to carry a dozen notebooks to have all the written information you need. However, transferring them can be a pain, taking extra time as you type them up by hand or try to dictate them.
The Evernote App turns your ordinary notebook into a smart one: it can use your phone’s camera to take pictures of your notes and then allows you to organize and categorize them appropriately. It also has easy sharing options and makes them accessible from all your devices.
Evernote App, Amazon Price / Free
No. 6: Noise-Canceling Headphones
No college student should be without some excellent noise-canceling headphones and definitely belong on a list of best study gadgets for college students. Wherever you’re trying to work, you may experience interruptions and noise while you’re at college, and these can really help you boost your focus. Our choice is the Sennheiser HD 4.50 headphones. These cups have some great advantages including the following advantages over similar phones including, Great noise cancelling, 20-hour battery, Travel-friendly design, and surprisingly affordable.
Related: Sennheiser HD 4.50 BTNC review
Whether the people who share your dorm are partying loudly, another study group is being obnoxious in the library, or you want to work in a busy coffee shop without the interruption of other customers, noise-canceling headphones are the way to go.
You can pair them with some particularly soothing or relaxing music or revise with specific tunes; some people find that this helps increase their retention rates and increases their focus on what they’re learning.
SENNHEISER HD 4.50 Bluetooth Wireless Headphones with Active Noise Cancellation, Amazon Price / $83.99
No. 7: Folding Bluetooth Keyboard
If you’re not a laptop person, but you find it hard to type up notes on your phone or tablet, this keyboard could be the answer to your problem. Instead of struggling with the on-screen keyboard – often a frustrating experience at best – you can tuck this in your bag.
The iClever BK03 keyboard really challenges your perceptions of what a folding keyboard can be. It has some great functions to allow you to use a functional, useful and compfortable keyboard for shorter typing sessions.
Bluetooth keyboards should be able to easily pair with your device, giving you access to a comfortable keyboard so you can type up notes quickly. It’s also less bulky than trying to carry around a notepad and pen!
Type them into a document you can access online, and you won’t even need to transfer them to your laptop when you get home.
iClever BK03 Mini Foldable BT 5.1 Wireless Keyboard, Amazon Price / $36.99
No. 8: Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook
If you want a notebook that you can make blank simply by microwaving it, this is one of the best study gadgets for you. It definitely earns its place in the list of the best study gadgets for college students, and it lets you upload handwritten notes to the cloud before you wipe the pages clean.
If you want an official take on how Rocketbook technology works, check out their website.
This is great for anyone who doesn’t like ending up with lots of notebooks full of stuff and would like to keep everything in one organized, online location.
Just make sure you don’t microwave the book before you upload the latest draft for your essay, and always make sure the upload has worked before erasing notes.
Rocketbook Wave Smart Notebook, Amazon Price / $22.94
No. 9: Smart Pen
If the other note-taking devices on the list of the best study gadgets for college students haven’t appealed to you, a smartpen might be a better option, specifically the livescribe smartpen 3. This amazing gadget transfers information to a synced device while you write. It can also record.
Goodbye bits of paper, goodbye trying to take pictures of your notes – hello everything in one simple place, where you can access it easily. Just remember to charge the pen, and don’t automatically say “yes” if someone asks if they can borrow it, or they might be a little puzzled by it!
Livescribe 3 Smart Pen, Amazon Price / $199.99
No. 10: Heated Travel Mug
How often do college students find themselves late for class because they had to stop to grab a coffee on the way? How many study sessions get interrupted because they discover a cup of tea has gone stone cold?
The Cauldryn Temperature Control heated travel mug can make study sessions more productive and encourage you to stay focused for longer. Many heated mugs can be controlled directly from your smartphone, meaning you don’t need to get up and leave your studying and can stay focused for longer.
Cauldryn Temperature Control Travel Mug, Amazon Price / $129.99
No. 11: Great Laptop - HP Envy x360 2-in-1
Not many people would think of going to college without one of these two, or both, so perhaps it’s superfluous to a list of the best study gadgets for college students, but let’s face it – you aren’t going to have a great college experience if you don’t have one.
When choosing a laptop, look at ones with a good core and a decent amount of RAM. This wants to be 8GB or more, ideally.
You should also consider solid-state; although magnetic hard drives are cheaper, they are quickly becoming outdated, and a machine with solid-state will last longer and prove more reliable.
Click here for the Just Josh / HP Envy 13 2-in-1 YouTube review
The one we recommend is the HP Envy x360 2-in-1 laptop. It’s a nice size at 13.3 inches, with an Intel Evo Platform 11th Gen Core i7-1165G7 CPU for good power, Windows 10, Iris Xe integrated Graphics, 8 GB of RAM, and a FHD screen. Overall this should be more than enough power, with good graphics ability and all round performance to cope with most students needs. The caveat to this would be if you are doing majors like, animation, video production etc, if that’s the case, you need to upscale to something much more powerful, but for the average student, this will work great.
2020 HP Envy x360 2-in-1, Amazon Price / $864.00
No. 12: Screen Glasses
Anyone in college is likely to be looking at a screen a lot. More and more studying is being done online, and we’re also learning more and more about how harmful the blue light and UV rays that come from screens can be for our eyes .
You can buy glasses to protect your vision during long hours of studying, and you should notice less itchiness and tiredness as a result. As a list of best study gadgets protecting your eyes for studying should be up there, and that’s why I have included it. If you already wear corrective lenses, you can even buy glasses with your prescription built-in.
these are good quality lenses, that will block out enough blue light to keep your eyesight in good working order. Are there better options through opticians, and eye clinics, of course, but overall these will keep your eyes safe.
Stylish Blue Light Blocking Glasses for Women or Men, Amazon Price / $17.95
Final Thoughts
There are lots of gadgets to help students out, and this list of the best study gadgets for college students has tried to collate some of the top valuable gadgets to get you equipped for the start of your college experience.
You don’t need every fancy new idea to have a great time at college, but many of these will make a big difference to your studying experience, and help you learn more effectively and for longer periods of time.
We hope you get a lot of value from the gadgets we have selected, and if you have tried them and have feedback, please put it in the comments below.
We hope you have a great experience at college and these gadgets help you traverse your time at your chosen university.
Hey, I’m Kris Taylor. I’m a Learning and Development professional currently in the healthcare field, with over 8 years of experience in the area of corporate education. I have created numerous instructional content for various corporate projects including eLearning, in-person facilitation, and virtual training across a wide variety of learning interventions and sectors. On Taughtup, I discuss topics ranging from how to succeed through K-12 to college all the way to instructional design tips for L&D designers.
