Computers, Laptops & Tablets

It’s official: class is in session. Summer vacation is over. Millions of students across Canada are getting back into the groove, determined to do better than ever this year. To help achieve those lofty academic goals, I’ve put together a collection of some of the best back to school tips from Plug-in writers. Elementary, high school, college or university, keep these in mind to use your high tech gear to stay organized and meet your goals for the 2015 school year.

The Seagate Wireless Plus hard drive collected Best of CES hardware at the 2013 Consumer Electronics Show and it’s easy to see why. Plenty of storage (2TB or enough for up to 1,000 movies), USB 3.0 speed and a compact size are all good to haves. But the Plus in this case is actually two pluses: Wi-Fi access (with its own Wi-Fi network) and a built-in battery for up to 10 hours of completely wire-free use. If you travel and wish you could take your media with you, the Seagate Wireless Plus hard drive may just be the perfect solution.

While video game consoles continue to get better, try telling the large number of diehard gamers that they should give up their gaming PC. Why settle for the 1080p graphics dished up by consoles when you can enjoy higher quality video effects at 4K resolution? And, with PC gaming you can go mobile, thanks to gaming laptops. Just don’t think you can pull off a graphically demanding title like Battlefield 4 on any old laptop or PC. You need a specialized gaming rig in order to make the most of what PC games have to offer.

Seagate is one of those brand names that pops up repeatedly when you talk about PCs. As a hard drive pioneer, Seagate’s products have a reputation for providing innovative storage solutions to meet any need, whether that’s size, capacity, speed or ease of use. The Seagate Backup Plus portable hard drive I’ve been testing offers a very high 4TB capacity in a very compact form factor. It has sufficient space to back up everything from your entire PC to your digital movie library, in a package that’s small enough to scoop up and slip in a jacket pocket to take with you.

Think your XBox One hard drive is a limitless expanse of storage that can hold everything you need it to? Not if you’re a serious game collector. Time to take a look at the Seagate Game Drive as an external storage solution.

With gamers spending so much time, money, and attention in fine-tuning the details of their gaming rig, they deserve a monitor that can keep up and really showcase that graphical performance. That monitor is finally here with the Acer XB270HU high performance 27” IPS gaming monitor.

In a world where we can print virtually anything on demand using the inkjet printer sitting on the desk beside us, what the heck is Instant Ink? The Answer, according to Hewlett-Packard is: “Original HP Ink ordered by your printer, delivered to your door.” Sounds convenient, but according to HP, by signing up for its Instant Ink replacement service, you can also save up to 50 percent compared to what you have been paying to keep your inkjet printer running. Now we’re going from convenient to very interesting. Let’s have a look at the details.

It’s a network attached storage (NAS) device with a bountiful list of features on offer, but are they features you need in your digital life?

Printers, even the all-in-one variety, have become more specialized, despite the various functions they provide. Turning out pages of documents isn’t the necessity it once was for consumers and business owners, but like any utilitarian gizmo, a printer may be indispensable to those who need it. Ink has long been the part that has defined the category because of the cost associated with it. Epson is attempting to change all that with ink tanks that will last for up to two years.

I had the chance to use a Surface Pro 3 at a launch event, but I haven’t spent any extended time with any of Microsoft’s tablets since a Surface 2 back in 2013. Microsoft recently sent me a new Surface 3 to try out for a long term review and I came away impressed with how these devices are evolving. And the experience got even better once I’d updated the loaner to Windows 10.