The Backpack – £21.99

The backpack I chose for this year is the Vaschy travel backpack. I have used this bag for about a month now along with a few others in a similar style and this is by far the best bag for its price. Its comfortable to wear on my daily commute and feels secure and safe. The bag has multiple pockets and lots of room making it easy to keep a laptop , all your school books, and your headphones all in separate safe compartments. So if you like an organised bag you’ll love this.

The bag itself is pretty light  but reassuringly rugged and doesn’t lose its shape easily; after my month of use I haven’t noticed any damage or stretches. However, I did learn in a rather upsetting event that the bag is not waterproof, although it can hold off some light rain, if you get caught in a downpour the bag will get damp and you’ll have to leave any books on the radiator when you get home!

Alternatives – If you are interested in spending a bit more for the label you could consider buying a similar Herschel bag for the more popular and well know brand. Otherwise, Northface are a popular brand at the moment and can offer some high quality products at a higher price range.

The Smartphone – £379.00

Despite the great competition I ended  up chosing the OnePlus Nord. While the Pixel 4a may have better software, and the iPhone SE is great for apple fans; the One Plus Nord is the full package. It comes with great android implementation, amazing camera quality, and more power than any other phone in this price range.

The Nord has an excellent screen sporting the largest screen ( 6.44 inches) out of the bunch with Full HD+ and 90hz response time making the screen feel fluid to use.  The great screen quality is equally matched by great camera quality on the front camera, although the front camera doesn’t quite keep up with the Pixel 4a and SE.  

 The storage is decent and we recommend the lower 128GB option and to use cloud storage for any other files or photos you may have. Finally, the phones battery life is acceptable giving you roughly a days worth of life and taking just over an hour to reach 100% charge when plugged in. 

Alternatives – If you are looking for a cheap first smartphone consider the iPhone 6s, selling at around £150 used it can be a great option for younger students, where the cost of losing or breaking it isn’t quite so high 

The Headphones (Mid) – £100

The higher end of headphones I chose were the Sony CH710N. They’re the headphones I’ve been using for about 9 months now and I love them. The look good, feel good and sound good. The noise cancelling on them isn’t perfect, really coming in to its strengths on planes and buses but overall it’s not the most effective I’ve seen. However, the sound is much more rich than the previous generation of these headphones although doesnt support EQ customisation. 

35 hours of battery life is more than I have ever needed and personally I’m yet to see my headphones drop below medium charge. Plus, even if they do run out of charge, they can charge an hour of battery in just ten minutes.   

The headphones are comfortable and stylish  although the ear covers are slightly rougher than the previous CH700N model, but I can wear them easily for hours at a time, while working, travelling or watching  a movie. As for style they are sleek and the Sony logo on the side shows they’re good quality, however these aren’t designed to look great when running.

The Headphones (Low) – £40

The lower end of headphones I chose were the Taotronics 2020 Updated Noise Cancelling Headphones. They’re great headphones and I ended up giving these to my mum for her commute to work. The noise cancelling on them is surprisingly good considering the price range, although it feels weirdly like you’re underwater. The sound quality is easily as good as your average earphones so shouldn’t been disappointing to any generic consumers. However, it can be a quite empty sound as the bass on the headphones isn’t the best I’ve heard. 

Again 35 hours of battery life is more than enough so one charge should be more than enough to keep you going for a few days even if  you struggle to remember to charge all your devices every evening .The headphones are comfortable, look good enough, and they fully cover your ear 

The Laptop – £500

The laptop I ended up ordering was the Honor MagicBook 14. It’s a great device for its price offering up powerful enough specs to run photo and video editing software as well as your regular internet browsing and word processing. I’ve used a very similar device to this with a slightly slower clock speed for the last year, so moving to this was a breath of fresh air.

The laptop is smooth and clean looking keeping it professional and distinctive from any laptops your school may have. It’s an excellent device that feels and looks more expensive than it is. It should have enough battery to get your through a day of school as long as you don’t do too much on the laptop. It has at least four hours of life for more intense processes but up to 8 for basic web browsing and video watching etc. Overall the battery life isn’t great but it isn’t bad which is about what you should expect considering the price.