Essential Back-To-School Tech

According to the National Retail Federation, the average family spends $606.40 getting ready for the upcoming school year. The survey also found that parents are spending more time looking for creative ways to spend less money. New product reporter and senior editor of BehindTheBuy.com David Gregg is here with some last minute tips and products to help you get the most bang for your back to school bucks.

Best Value Laptops
The Gateway ID Series weighs only 5 pounds and is just 1-inch thin. It features the performance a student needs in a primary PC including a 14-inch HD display, an Intel Core i3 processor, 4GB of memory, 500GB hard drive and Wifi. It’s also great for entertainment with Dolby home theater sound, easy one-touch multimedia keys, DVD burner and a web cam. For about half the price and half the size comes the Gateway LT Series netbook. It offers 8 hours of battery life in a 2.76-pound package. It also offers a social networking key that allows students to quickly access their social networks on Facebook, YouTube and Flickr to keep tabs on friends and provide their own updates, photos and videos. ($680; $350 respectively; www.gateway.com)

Peace of mind for millions of working parents with Latchkey Kids
Schlage LiNK is an affordable and easy-to-install home-management system that provides peace of mind for working parents with latchkey children. When the kids arrive home from school and enter their personal codes into the keypad you receive a text alert or email on your phone. No more worrying about whether they arrived home safely. You can also Lock and unlock doors and monitor access to your home from your cell phone or a computer. Control the temperature with this optional thermostat ($149) . See who’s at the front door with this optional wireless camera ($179). It sells for $299 for the Starter Kit plus a $12.99 monthly subscription. Starter kit includes a wireless lever lock or deadbolt, a “Bridge” module that plugs to your router and a light module so you can control a lamp. ( $299; www.link.schlage.com)

Low cost printer for the whole family
KODAK ESP 5250 All-in-One Printer
Whether you are printing term papers or permission slips, this printer is an affordable way to print everything you and your child need to tackle the school year. Enabled with built-in Wi-Fi, allowing you to print from any room in the home , or print directly from your iPhone with the PicFlick application. Kodak has the lowest ink replacement in the industry with black ink costing $9.99 and color ink starting at $14.99. ( $119; www.kodak.com)

Big Screen Cell Phones
Samsung’s Galaxy S
These new phones feature faster speed, bigger screens and more content than ever. They run on Google's Android 2.1 operating system. Currently the Captivate from AT&T and the Vibrant from T-Mobile, Galaxy S versions are available with all major carriers releasing version in coming months. Each has a huge hi res, 4 inch Super AMOLED screen which offers brighter colors and crisper, more vivid images, which is great for watching movies or surfing the web, a 1GHz Hummingbird application processor, which makes them fast and allows them to support 3-D graphics and HD-like multimedia content, and Samsung’s upcoming content store featuring movie and TV programming called Media Hub. ( $ depending on plan; www.samsung.com)

Color eReader/email device that won't break the bank
The Pandigital Novel is a color eReader provides a great reading experience, high resolution and integrated Barnes & Noble bookstore. You can download hundreds of books and easily organize them into libraries. The Pandigital Novel runs on the Android operating system , so you can also browse the web and check email. It comes in white and black with slight differences.. The white unit is available already at stores like Kohl’s and Bed, Bath & Beyond. The black unit will be available at the end of this month. ( $179; www.pandigital.com)

For more information on all these products and more go to www.behindthebuy.com.