The uni tech checklist

A student starting university in the UK needs five pieces of tech: a laptop, earbuds or headphones, a power bank, a spare USB-C charger and a surge-protected extension lead. Compare Electronic's cheapest complete kit costs £357.31 on Amazon UK at the time of writing (October 2026), built around the £289 ASUS Chromebook Plus CX34. The laptop decides the rest of the budget: £599 buys the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 14 Gen 10 for Windows courses, and £1,189 buys the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch M5, the top pick in Compare Electronic's student laptop guide.

The checklist below sorts every item into essential, useful and nice to have, with a pick and a price for each. The UK notes further down cover the TV licence in halls, contents insurance and the free Microsoft 365 most universities provide.

What tech do you need for university?

Five items are essential for university: a laptop, earbuds, a power bank, a spare charger and an extension lead. Everything else makes halls life easier but can wait for the first student loan payment. Compare Electronic's checklist prices the cheapest good option for each item at Amazon UK prices on 3 October 2026.

How much does university tech cost?

The essential university tech kit costs £357.31, £711.31 or £1,393.26, depending on the laptop. Compare Electronic priced three kits with the same five essentials, scaling the earbuds and power bank with the laptop. The laptop makes up 81% to 85% of every total.

A 30 W USB-C charger tops up all three laptops, more slowly than their own chargers but fast enough to keep one in the library bag. Students on a tight budget should also read Best laptop under £300 UK 2026, which includes renewed Windows laptops from £254.

Which laptop should a student take to university?

The Apple MacBook Air 13-inch M5 is the best laptop for most students, the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 14 Gen 10 is the best value for Windows courses, and the ASUS Chromebook Plus CX34 suits essay courses on a tight budget. Check the course software list first: engineering, computing and many science courses need Windows programs that ChromeOS cannot run.

The MacBook Air M5 costs £1,189 on Amazon UK at the time of writing (October 2026). Apple rates it at up to 18 hours, which covers a day of lectures and an evening in the library without a charger, and it weighs 1.23 kg. The Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 14 Gen 10 at £599 runs every Windows program a course might list, with an 8-core AMD Ryzen 7 170, 16GB of RAM, a 512GB SSD and a 14-inch 1920x1200 screen from 1.39 kg. The full ranking, with education pricing, is in Best student laptop UK 2026.

Do students need noise-cancelling earbuds or headphones?

Yes: after the laptop, noise cancelling is the most useful tech in shared halls and busy libraries. The Soundcore P30i earbuds cost £23.99 on Amazon UK at the time of writing (October 2026) with active noise cancellation and 45 hours of total battery with the case. The Soundcore Liberty 4 NC at £47.99 adds wireless charging, multipoint for a phone and laptop at once, and 50 hours in total.

For long library sessions, over-ear headphones block more noise and stay comfortable for longer. The Sennheiser Accentum Plus costs £129.97, weighs 227 g and Sennheiser rates it at 50 hours with noise cancelling on. More picks are in Best wireless earbuds UK 2026 and Best wireless headphones UK 2026.

What chargers and power banks do students need?

A student needs one power bank, one spare USB-C charger and one surge-protected extension lead, for under £45 in total. A 10,000 mAh power bank such as the INIU 10000mAh at £19.99 recharges a phone one and a half to two times between lectures. The Anker Nano Power Bank 10K at £39.99 has its USB-C cable built in, and the UGREEN Nexode 20000mAh 130W at £49.96 can charge a laptop at up to 100 W.

The extension lead matters more than it sounds. Halls rooms often have one double socket by the desk for a laptop, phone, lamp and speaker. The Masterplug 6-way surge-protected lead costs £12.49 with a 2 m cable and a switch. The power bank ranking is in Best power bank UK 2026, and the flight rules for going home in the holidays are in Can you take a power bank on a plane?

What tech is worth having in a university room?

A streaming stick, a smart speaker and a desk keyboard are the most useful extras for a halls room, and a mini projector replaces a TV. The Fire TV Stick 4K Select at £21.99 turns any monitor or TV with HDMI into a streaming screen, and the Echo Dot (5th gen) at £29.99 handles alarms, timers and music.

The Logitech MK295 combo costs £23.32 for a UK-layout wireless keyboard and mouse that Logitech rates for 36 months on the keyboard batteries, which makes a laptop on a stack of books a usable desk setup. For film nights, the Dangbei N2 projector costs £199.99 with a native 1920x1080 picture and Netflix built in; the alternatives are ranked in Best mini projector for university UK 2026. English and history students with long reading lists get the most from the Kindle Paperwhite at £184.99.

Do students need a TV licence and insurance at university?

A student needs a TV licence for their halls room if they watch or record live TV on any channel, or use BBC iPlayer, on any device, including a laptop or phone. The licence costs £180 a year from 1 April 2026. TV Licensing's student rules let a parent's licence cover a student only when the device runs on its own internal battery and is not plugged into the mains. Netflix, YouTube and other on-demand services outside iPlayer need no licence.

Three more checks save money in the first term:

• Microsoft 365: most UK universities give enrolled students Word, Excel and PowerPoint free. Check the IT services page before paying for Office.
• Contents insurance: many halls include basic contents cover. Check whether it covers a laptop taken out of the room, to lectures or the library.
• Course software:the department's software list decides between Windows, macOS and ChromeOS. Check it before buying the laptop, not after.

What tech do students forget to take to university?

The items students most often forget are the boring ones: a spare charger, an extension lead and a way to back up their work. Put coursework in the university's cloud storage or another cloud service from the first week, so a lost or broken laptop does not take the coursework with it. Other easy misses:

• An HDMI or USB-C cable for presentations and a spare monitor.
• A laptop sleeve or padded bag for the walk to campus.
• Earbuds with a microphone for online seminars.
• A phone charger long enough to reach the bed from the socket.

Verdict

A student starting university in 2026 needs a laptop, earbuds, a power bank, a spare charger and an extension lead, which cost £357.31 with the ASUS Chromebook Plus CX34, £711.31 with the Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 14 Gen 10 and £1,393.26 with the Apple MacBook Air 13-inch M5 at Amazon UK prices on 3 October 2026. Choose the laptop by course software first, add noise-cancelling earbuds second, and check the TV licence rules before watching live TV in halls.