Review: Back-to-School Essentials with Staples

This is the second in a two-part series about back to school products. Staples provided me with the laptop and backpack featured in this post.

While I use a Mac for work, at the end of the day I’m still a PC girl. Matthew just shakes his head at me. 🙂 I have had the same PC laptop for several years and it’s been running a little slow. Needless to say, I was over the moon when Staples contacted me about reviewing a backpack and laptop for back-to-school season.

For whatever reason, I always equate Staples with office supplies, so was blown away by their selection of affordable laptops and backpacks. They had hundreds of options. I selected a backpack for Matthew and a laptop for me.

Matthew likes using a backpack for going write at coffee shops, so I needed to find on that was durable, since he uses it pretty much every day. While Staples has tons of kid-friendly options, they also offer a great selection for adults too. I landed on this Pelican backpack, which is seriously the most durable backpack I have ever seen. This thing will last Matthew the rest of his life, I’m sure of it.

It easily holds his laptop, a huge stack of books, an ipad and more. It’s waterproof and has a strong handle for carrying it like a piece of luggage. Since Matthew travels a lot, this will definitely come in handy.

Pelican products also have a lifetime warranty, which is incredible to me.

My brother-in-law is a computer guy and after checking out all the laptops at Staples, he recommended the Acer NX.M81AA.010 15.6in. Laptop. Y’all, it is SO cool. It is just over 5 lbs. and less than 1″ thin, making it one of the slimmest notebooks in its category!

Seriously, my old laptop is a beast next to this one.

It has AMD Quad-Core processing, which I don’t really know what that means except that it is super fast.

I’m someone who struggles with working on a laptop. I like a big screen and the feeling of a desktop. This laptop totally feels like a desktop and I love working on it.

I will admit, I am still getting used to Windows 8, but have been so impressed with the beautiful screen quality, video performance and overall speed of the machine. (If anyone has Windows 8 tips, I would love them!)

The best part is that this incredible laptop is just $399, which is pretty remarkable.

Laptops, backpacks and of course, office supplies – Staples has it all. Don’t count them out the next time you need anything for your home, school or office needs. I think you will be impressed. I know I was.

Have you shopped at Staples for school/home office supplies before?