Our Best Student Deals on the Stuff You Need
Every year the Back to School season brings with it some great promotions and specials on some of your favorite products. Here is out roundup of the best deals we've seen this Back to School season, on the products we know you can use...
1. MICROSOFT OFFICE UNIVERSITY 365 ($79.99): With Microsoft's new subscription based Office suite, you don't have to worry about upgrading whenever a new version comes out. For the period of the subscription, you will always gave access to the newest updates and versions. As an University or College student, the subscription is good for a full four years, rather than the usual one year commercial or home subscriptions, and as an added bonus, until September 28, every copy of Office 365 includes a year of Microsoft XBox LIVE Gold, which normally sells for $59.95 by itself.2. ADOBE CREATIVE SUITE CS6 DESIGN & WEB PREMIUM ($375.00): Although Adobe is in the process of switching to an annual subscription based system as well, for now the traditional Creative Suite of products remains available to students. With the Design & Web edition of the software, you get access to many of the most powerful professional tools on the market for working with images, web sites, and printed pages, including tools like Photoshop, Illustrator, and Dreamweaver, all for a fraction of the usual price - for students, this is $375.00, while the same software without the educational discount retails for almost $2000.
3. TOSHIBA SATELLITE NOTEBOOK COMPUTER (from $599.00): Toshiba's line of powerful, stylish consumer notebooks has always been reliable student computer, but for back to school this year, they have incorporated a feature that will be appreciated by many, though hopefully will only ever need to be used by few. They are including, with several models, a free upgrade from the traditional one year warranty to a three year warranty that covers not only defect or failure, but accidental damage as well. That means that your warranty will cover most damage originating from drops to spills to almost anything else unforeseen. At $599, the Satellite C50 includes a spacious 15" widescreen display, an Intel i3 processor, 6GB of memory and 500GB of storage - sufficient for any day to day computing needs. For the more demanding user, just over $100 more upgrades this to the L50 model ($729), which bumps the CPU to an i5, the memory to 8GB and adds an additional 140GB of storage space.
4. CANON PIXMA MX452 ALL-IN-ONE PRINTER ($44.99): With an automatic document feeder for easy scanning and copying, integrated AirPrint-compatible Wireless printing, and cost-effective high yield and ultra high yield ink cartridges, the Canon Pixma MX452 printer is a steal at $44.99. If you don't need wireless or the document feeder, its little brother, the Pixma MX2220 All-In-One printer is also available, for only $29.99.
5. EKG ETHERNET AND USB CABLES ($2.99 for the 7' model): EKG's motto is "Buy the Product, Not the Package", and they certainly live up to this, packing their cables in the most environmentally friendly manner we've seen yet, using nothing but recycled cardboard and twine. In addition, they support a variety of ecologically-minded initiatives, including the Arbor Day Foundation, who receive a percentage of their sales to help with their reforestation efforts. Available in a variety of cable types and sizes.
7. LACIE PORSCHE DESIGN EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE ($119.99): With 2TB storage, this small desktop hard drive provides plenty of room for storing media and backups without using a lot of your space or money. Compatible with any PC or Mac, it works well with any backup software (including Apple's Time Machine backup solution for Mac users). Also available in a 3TB version (LaCie Minimus @ $134.99) and a 1TB portable version (LaCie Rikiki @ $89.99).
