Tablets are a pretty ubiquitous item these days and more and more students carry them around. They are useful for quick communications, being used with electronic textbooks if you are lucky enough and are great mobile entertainment devices. While they work great on their own, students can get a lot more out of their devices with a few accessories. Here are some of the things I think can make that tablet a bit more useful and fun.

Protective Case/Cover

Tablets for the most part are fairly sturdy but one wrong drop and you can have a very dead device, particularly if the glass ends up cracked. Add to this many students just dropping their tablet into a cluttered bag and you can get small items that can press hard into the screen with just enough pressure can cause damage even with the toughened Gorilla Glass. I highly recommend that tablets be used with a case in order to protect them from such damage. Whatever case or cover you get should cover the screen when it is closed for the best protection. Cases can also be functional as well. For instance, a cover or case that can double as a stand is very useful. Sadly, each tablet has its own cases available for it so there is no one recommendation I have here. Prices can also very greatly from as little as $20 to upwards of $100.

Stylus Pen

A stylus is in essence a pen like pointing device with a special capacitive cap that can be used with tablet devices. They are useful in two ways. First, they can be more accurate than using your finger with a screen especially if it is a smaller tablet. Second, it will help keep the screen much cleaner than using ones finger. There are lots of functional options on the market but for a student I think a multitasking device is best. Cross makes some excellent ballpoint pens and the Cross Tech3+ multifunction pen comes with black ink, red ink, mechanical pencil and a capacitive touch cap all in one device that is stylish and functional.

Bluetooth Keyboard

Tablets are very useful for browsing the web or streaming media but if you have to write up a long document on one it can be extremely hard with the onscreen keyboard. If the student needs to do a lot of writing on the tablet, I strongly recommend getting a keyboard to go with it. Pretty much every tablet on the market features Bluetooth for connecting to peripherals including wireless keyboards. There are a number of options on the market from the very low cost to some incredibly expensive options. I find that the Anker T300 keyboard is a nice balance thanks to its compact size, good keyboard and very low price tag. Now if you intend to use the wireless keyboard with more than just a tablet, you might want to consider the Logitech Easy-Switch K811 which can be synced and used with three different devices but it does carry a $100 price tag.

External Speakers

Due to their small size and thin profiles, most tablets don’t offer the best audio experience. To make matters worse, they may feature stereo speakers but it still sounds like mono sound because the speakers are so close together. If the tablet is going to be used for entertainment in an apartment or dorm room, then some external portable speakers can make a great addition when you are listening to music or streaming a video. The iHome IMH79BC speakers are a nice low cost option for those that want to add some good external speakers. The speakers are very compact and can be carried easily and feature rechargeable batteries for amplification. The one downside is that they are still wired speakers with fairly short cords.

Wireless Headset

Sometimes you might want to listen to some music while working in a lab or library but you can’t disturb those around you. A good set of headphones can allow you to do this but why not get a wireless headset instead? These let you listen without having to be connected to the device and can also double as a microphone if you need to use your tablet to do a voice chat or VoIP call. Motorola used to make a headset that I liked a lot but discontinued it. Thankfully, a number of smaller companies like Kinivo have duplicated that old design and provided it at a very reasonable price. This model even features digital music controls on the headset and of course they are fully rechargeable through a micro-USB port.

Cloud Storage

One big problem that tablets have is their relatively limited space. Even if you happen to have a 64GB tablet, you will find that space can quickly be filled up with applications and media. Most tablets only feature between 16 and 32GB of storage making it even worse. The easiest way to deal with this is to use Cloud Storage. This effectively lets you store your data on the internet to be retrieved as needed. There are a number of services out there on the market each with their own prices and storage limits. To get a better idea of what is available, check out my Cloud Storage article. Just remember that if you don’t have a network connection available, you won’t be able to access your data in the cloud.