the best Apple products

Apple is mostly known for three characteristics — how strongly-built and premium their hardware is, how long their devices receive software support, and how inter-connected their ecosystem is. Once you’re in the walled garden, it’s very hard to give it up and switch to alternatives. From Macs, to both affordable iPads and Pro iPads, to other accessories — there’s an Apple product for everyone and almost every purpose. If you’re a student, we have prepared for you a list of the best Apple products you can get your hands on right now.

The Apple MacBook Air has been one of the most popular notebooks for a few years now. It’s light, capable, and — relatively speaking — affordable. This laptop offers a slim, premium design, unmatched by any of its rivals. It offers great durability and gets software updates for at least seven years usually. To sum up — it’s a future-proof investment.

Powered by the Apple M1 chip, the latest MacBook Air has a 13-inch LED-backlit display, with a 2560 x 1600 native resolution at 227 pixels per inch with support for millions of colors. Its screen also supports True Tone, making the colors a bit warmer in certain lighting conditions.

The M1 chip has an always-on processor, an eight-core CPU with four perform­ance cores and four efficiency cores, a seven-core GPU, and a 16 core Neural Engine. This turns it into a beast when compared to similarly priced laptops. It’s so capable and power-efficient that Apple actually removed the fans from its internals. The MacBook Air M1 simply doesn’t heat up with average use.

When it comes to battery life, it has a built-in 49.9 watt-hour lithium-polymer battery. It lasts for up to 15 hours when browsing the web on a single charge, according to Apple. It comes with a 30W USB-C power adapter, so fully charging it takes around 3 hours only, when it’s completely drained.

The MacBook Air M1 includes two USB-C ports and — surprisingly — a 3.5mm headphone jack. So you will likely need to buy extra dongles or depend on cloud-based and other wireless solutions. Personally, I’m not bothered because my setup is completely wireless and my work is internet browser-based, for the most part at least. I only use one of the USB-C ports for charging it. The other Thunderbolt 3 port and headphone jack remain untouched.

This affordable notebook comes with 8GB of RAM, but it’s upgradable to 16GB — if you require the extra memory. The base model has 256GB of SSD storage and can be upgraded to 512GB, 1TB, or 2TB. So these configurations should be enough to fit your student needs, unless you’re studying rocket science.

The Apple MacBook Air M1 comes with macOS 11 Big Sur pre-installed, and you can update it to macOS 12 Monterey. What makes this laptop a great fit for students is its portability and lightweight. You can just slide it in your backpack and get going. It has just enough power for an average student, and it has a reasonable price tag for the punch it packs. What’s even better is that you can even get it for cheaper from Apple if you’re eligible for the Student Discount.

The MacBook Air M1 is only available in three colors — Gold, Silver, and Space Gray. So if you’re a fan of more vibrant colors, you will have to settle for a case or skin for your new laptop. The base model is priced at $999 in the US, without the Student Discount.

If you are looking for a phone that is relatively modern yet doesn’t leave a hole in your pocket, the Apple iPhone 12 is what you’re looking for. It’s a balance between affordable and capable. While it’s neither the latest nor the most affordable iPhone, it still shines in places where the most affordable or the latest don’t.