Tech
Save on WIRED-Tested Gear for the New School Year. These Are the Best Deals
It’s “back to school” season for some and “been back in school” season for others, but regardless of your specific situation, now is the time of year when retailers are discounting all the school essentials. We’ve hunted down discounts on the best back-to-school gear our reviewers have hand-tested, from laptops and mattress toppers to bags and chairs.
Be sure to check out our related guides, including the Best Back-to-School Laptop Deals, the Best Dorm Gear, and the Best Kids Backpacks.
Top Back-to-School Deals
Tech Deals
Photograph: Brenda Stolyar
The MacBook Air M4 (2025) is a rock-solid MacBook for college students. It’s our favorite laptop overall and the Best MacBook you can buy, and it gets you excellent value for the money. It strikes a fantastic balance between performance and price, and it’ll have no trouble handling multiple browser tabs or lasting you all day. It has support for external displays and Apple Intelligence, a high-resolution 12-MP webcam, and a thin form factor that won’t bother your back while you’re toting it around.
The Lenovo Flex 5i Chromebook Plus is a very good Chromebook for students, especially if you need a solid laptop and your budget is tight. The 2-in-1 design can be used in laptop mode or tablet mode, and while the battery life could be better, the performance is smooth. It’s hard to find more laptop for the price.
The Apple iPad (2025, A16) sells for this price pretty frequently, but it does jump back up to its MSRP of $350 regularly and rarely falls much below $300. It’s the best iPad for most people, and it’s a solid contender if you want some of the capabilities of doing basic schoolwork without a traditional laptop. It’s compatible with the first-generation Apple Pencil, the USB-C Apple Pencil, the Smart Folio, and the Magic Keyboard Folio. We have more recommendations in our iPad Accessories Buying Guide.
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Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
The OnePlus 13 came out earlier this year, and this is the best price drop we’ve seen for it so far. It’s a great Android phone, especially if you care a lot about the battery: Not only does it last up to two days, depending on what you’re doing, but it can also be charged from zero to 100 in just over 30 minutes. Battery aside, the rest of the phone is good, too: Snappy performance, water resistance, and a slick triple-lens camera. If you order from OnePlus directly, you’ll get a free phone case or pair of earbuds. It’s a very solid deal if you want to upgrade your phone for the new school year.
This is a great deal on the best high-capacity USB-A flash drive, and if you need more space for some reason, the 2-terabyte version is also discounted. It has zippy speeds, a three-year warranty, and enough space to store console games or 4K movies. (Or, you know, many school papers.)
This is the best budget gaming monitor. (We also quite like the AOC QD-OLED Monitor (Q27G4ZD) but it is not currently on sale.) The price has only dropped by $20, but this is a match of the lowest it tends to drop outside of events like Black Friday, and just $20 above the lowest price we’ve seen. It’s not 4K, but you’ll get a 180-Hz refresh rate with this 27-inch 1440p screen. It has adaptive sync for smooth gameplay, and it’ll be a noticeable upgrade if you’re using a 1080p monitor. If you want to spend some time gaming between Zoom calls or homework, and your monitor needs an upgrade, this is a safe bet.
Photograph: Parker Hall
If you don’t need Dolby Vision support, then this is the Roku you want. It’s the best streaming stick for most people. The Roku Streaming Stick Plus (2025) is a 4K and HDR-friendly streaming stick with a voice remote and a small footprint. It’s very similar to the stick we recommend below—it just doesn’t have Dolby Vision, and it has shorter Wi-Fi range, which shouldn’t be a problem if your dorm is small.
This is the best Roku overall. It supports 4K streaming and Dolby Vision, and it comes with a voice remote. It’ll plug directly into the back of your TV. Roku’s interface is slick and easy to use, and there are even free live TV shows so you can watch Antiques Roadshow or How It’s Made. If you’ve been using your parents’ streaming stick and you’re off to college, this is an option worth considering.
When these fantastic workout headphones aren’t selling for $250, they’re selling for $200. It’s very rare to find a better discount, and even then, it’s usually minimal. The Beats Powerbeats Pro 2 Earbuds are aesthetically pleasing, with popping colors like purple and orange available. They’re comfortable to wear, with good sound and noise cancelation. They have on-board controls. They play well with Android and iOS devices. And the wireless charging case can top them up when the 10-hour battery life runs out. It’s hard to find a better pair of workout-friendly earbuds, and they’re a great choice for student athletes who want to zone out at the gym.
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Photograph: Ryan Waniata
This Bluetooth speaker has a built-in carabiner that can be attached to your backpack, bike handlebars, or belt loop. We like the durable water- and dust-resistant body, and it has surprisingly good sound for a speaker as small as it is. It’s not perfect for parties, but it is a solid pick if you want on-the-go sound for your bicycle commute or your after-school workouts.
The Apple Watch Series 10 is the best smartwatch for iPhone owners, and it’s also an excellent fitness tracker. If you don’t already have a smartwatch, you might be surprised at all the little ways it can improve your life. From at-a-glance notifications to workout and sleep tracking to emergency SOS alerts in case of an accident, these wrist gadgets are worth considering for going off to college or leading a class full of students. For an Android alternative, we like the Google Pixel 3 on sale for $318 ($82 off), but a new watch is coming later this month, so you might want to wait.
If your kiddos are going to be using laptops or tablets for school this year, they might need a pair of headphones. These are great kid-safe headphones that offer noise cancellation to help keep them focused, with volume limited to 85 decibels to help protect little ears. They’re comfortable to wear and can be used wirelessly or with the included 3.5-mm audio cable.
This is the best power bank for those who want more than the basics. Its 25,000-mAh capacity and up to 165-watt delivery are more than enough for your phone, tablet, and laptop, and the power bank itself recharges quickly as well. It also has a handy display for at-a-glance information, and built-in USB-C cables that’ll come in handy in a pinch.
Backpack, Tote, and School Supply Deals
Courtesy of The Happy Planner
The Happy Planner makes our favorite paper planners for students, and its warehouse sale offers many steep discounts on planners as well as accessories and expansion packs. Some of these planners have layouts that started in July of 2025, but they go through December 2026, so you’ll still get plenty of use out of them.
This is a fantastic carry-all for people who don’t mind carrying a purse-style tote bag. The medium tote is reasonably sized, but you should go with the large if you have a 13-inch laptop or bigger. The nylon is durable, the bag has feet on the bottom to protect it from floor gunk, and there are a few different internal compartments for laptops, shoes, and other necessities. It’s a very solid bag for your day-to-day life.
Amazon is offering 10 percent off when you purchase four qualifying items across several categories, including office supplies. There are a ton of school supplies in the sale, including paper, pencils, folders, index cards, dry-erase markers, and more. Being AmazonBasics items, most are already affordable, so the extra discount is just icing on the cake. This deal is especially great for any teachers restocking their classrooms—or parents whose kiddos manage to lose pencils with abandon. Simply add four items to your cart and the discount will automatically be applied.
Home and Dorm Deals
Photograph: Brooklyn Bedding
This excellent memory foam mattress topper is the perfect pick to upgrade your dorm bed, and every size (from Twin to King) is on sale. There’s even a Twin XL option in case your supplied mattress is that size. At 4 inches tall, this is practically a mattress in and of itself, and it’ll definitely be better than the bed you’re given. It has antimicrobial properties and cooling covers, and it’s CertiPur-US certified. Need more bedding recommendations? We can help—check our pillows and sheets buying guides.
The Anthros V2 is the best ergonomic office chair, with plush seating, good support, and smooth casters. You can adjust the upper and lower back separately to match your body shape; the thick Cloudfloat seat is both firm and cushy; and you’ll even get to video chat with an Anthros ergonomics therapist to help make sure your seat is set up properly. It could have better heat dissipation, and we wish the seat were deeper, but this remains a fantastic pick if you’re staring down the prospect of sitting down while doing homework or teaching.
Deals on Everything Else
Photograph: Last Crumb
Maybe you want to give a teacher a gift to curry favor … or simply start the school year off right. Or maybe your favorite chocoholic teen is off to college. Last Crumb’s cookies are excellent edible gifts, with a luxurious flavor and mouthfeel and the price tag to match. Sales are pretty rare, and this deal helps you save on a 12-pack. You’ll get four each of Better Than Sex, Floor Is Lava, and James Dean—chocolate chip, chocolate lava, and Oreo milkshake, respectively. I can confirm that the Floor is Lava cookies changed my life.
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More recently, Iran has been a regular adversary in cyberspace—and while it hasn’t demonstrated quite the acuity of Russia or China, Iran is “good at finding ways to maximize the impact of their capabilities,” says Jeff Greene, the former executive assistant director of cybersecurity at CISA. Iran, in particular, famously was responsible for a series of distributed-denial-of-service attacks on Wall Street institutions that worried financial markets, and its 2012 attack on Saudi Aramco and Qatar’s Rasgas marked some of the earliest destructive infrastructure cyberattacks.
Today, surely, Iran is weighing which of these tools, networks, and operatives it might press into a response—and where, exactly, that response might come. Given its history of terror campaigns and cyberattacks, there’s no reason to think that Iran’s retaliatory options are limited to missiles alone—or even to the Middle East at all.
Which leads to the biggest known unknown of all:
5. How does this end? There’s an apocryphal story about a 1970s conversation between Henry Kissinger and a Chinese leader—it’s told variously as either Mao-Tse Tung or Zhou Enlai. Asked about the legacy of the French revolution, the Chinese leader quipped, “Too soon to tell.” The story almost surely didn’t happen, but it’s useful in speaking to a larger truth particularly in societies as old as the 2,500-year-old Persian empire: History has a long tail.
As much as Trump (and the world) might hope that democracy breaks out in Iran this spring, the CIA’s official assessment in February was that if Khamenei was killed, he would be likely replaced with hardline figures from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. And indeed, the fact that Iran’s retaliatory strikes against other targets in the Middle East continued throughout Saturday, even after the death of many senior regime officials—including, purportedly, the defense minister—belied the hope that the government was close to collapse.
The post-World War II history of Iran has surely hinged on three moments and its intersections with American foreign policy—the 1953 CIA coup, the 1979 revolution that removed the shah, and now the 2026 US attacks that have killed its supreme leader. In his recent bestselling book King of Kings, on the fall of the shah, longtime foreign correspondent Scott Anderson writes of 1979, “If one were to make a list of that small handful of revolutions that spurred change on a truly global scale in the modern era, that caused a paradigm shift in the way the world works, to the American, French, and Russian Revolutions might be added the Iranian.”
It is hard not to think today that we are living through a moment equally important in ways that we cannot yet fathom or imagine—and that we should be especially wary of any premature celebration or declarations of success given just how far-reaching Iran’s past turmoils have been.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has repeatedly bragged about how he sees the military and Trump administration’s foreign policy as sending a message to America’s adversaries: “F-A-F-O,” playing off the vulgar colloquialism. Now, though, it’s the US doing the “F-A” portion in the skies over Iran—and the long arc of Iran’s history tells us that we’re a long, long way from the “F-O” part where we understand the consequences.
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While my love of smoked meats is well-documented, my own journey into actually tending the fire started just last spring when I jumped at the opportunity to review the Traeger Woodridge Pro. When Recteq came calling with a similar offer to check out the Flagship 1600, I figured it would be a good way to stay warm all winter.
While the two smokers have a lot in common, the Recteq definitely feels like an upgrade from the Traeger I’ve been using. Not only does it have nearly twice the cooking space, but the huge pellet hopper, rounded barrel, and proper smokestack help me feel like a real pitmaster.
The trade-off is losing some of the usability features that make the Woodridge Pro a great first smoker. The setup isn’t as quite as simple, and the larger footprint and less ergonomic conditions require a little more experience or patience. With both options, excellent smoked meat is just a few button presses away, but speaking as someone with both in their backyard, I’ve been firing up the Recteq more often.
Getting Settled
Photograph: Brad Bourque
Setting up the Recteq wasn’t as time-consuming as the Woodridge, but it was more difficult to manage on my own. Some of the steps, like attaching the bull horns to the lid, or flipping the barrel onto its stand, would really benefit from a patient friend or loved one. Like most smokers, you’ll need to run a burn-in cycle at 400 degrees Fahrenheit to make sure there’s nothing left over from manufacturing or shipping. Given the amount of setup time and need to cool down the smoker after, I would recommend setting this up Friday afternoon if you want to smoke on a Saturday.
The main job of Google Chrome is to give you a window to the web. With so much engaging content out there on the internet, you may not have given much thought to the browser framework that serves as the container for the sites you visit.
You’d be forgiven for still using the default toolbar configuration that was in place when you first installed Chrome. But if you take a few minutes to customize it, it can make a significant difference to your browsing. You can get quicker access to the key features you need, and you may even discover features you didn’t know about.
If you’re reading this in Chrome on the desktop, you can experiment with a few customizations right now—all it takes is a few clicks. Here’s how the toolbar in Chrome is put together, and all the different changes you can make.
The Default Layout
Take a look up at the top right corner of your Chrome browser tab and you’ll see two key buttons: One reveals your browser extensions (the jigsaw piece), and the other opens up your bookmarks (the double-star icon). There should also be a button showing a downward arrow, which gives you access to recently downloaded files.
Right away, you can start customizing. If you click the jigsaw piece icon to show your browser extensions, you can also click the pin button next to any one of these extensions to make it permanently visible on the toolbar. While you don’t want your toolbar to become too cluttered, it means you can put your most-used add-ons within easy reach.
For the extension icons you choose to have on the toolbar, you can choose the way they’re arranged, too: Click and drag on any of the icons to change its position (though the extensions panel itself has to stay in the same place). To remove an extension icon (without uninstalling the extension), right-click on it and choose Unpin.
Making Changes
Click the three dots up in the top right corner of any browser window and then Settings > Appearance > Customize your toolbar to get to the main toolbar customization panel, which has recently been revamped. Straight away you’ll see toggle switches that let you show or hide certain buttons on the toolbar.
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