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Back in the day, you had a desktop computer and a laptop, the latter being an extension to the former since it wasn’t powerful enough to do more than light work. That has changed. Laptops have become powerhouses with all-day batteries that can play AAA games and rip through heavy workloads like paper. Now, you can comfortably own a laptop, and … period. No desktop required. Assuming a laptop is — or will become — your main computing device, we have a few recommendations for laptop accessories to make the most of it.

We’re aiming for a wide variety of items you can find on Amazon, with an emphasis on affordability. Everything we show here is something actually useful to a laptop user (based in large part on personal experience) because the last thing we want is for you to buy a bunch of cheap products that only end up in the trash. These 14 accessories are ones we think deserve a spot on your wish list.

Laptop storage allotments are often pitifully small, cost a firstborn child to buy more, and are usually next to impossible to upgrade later. The solution? A portable external SSD. Portable SSDs are fast, and provided you have the right USB ports, you may not even be able to tell them apart from your internal SSD. A small and relatively affordable option we recommend is the SSK Portable SSD. It starts at 250GB for $59, going up to 4TB for an eye-watering $420. Thanks, RAM crisis.

What we like about the SSK is that it’s a nice balance between performance and form factor. It weighs less than 40 grams and is only 2.6 inches long, while supporting USB 3.2 Gen 2 and write speeds of 1,000 MB/s. It boasts 1-meter drop protection and strong heat dissipation for intensive workloads. Bear in mind, the SSK is not limited to just laptops. It ships ready to run on mobile devices, consoles, and anything that supports external storage and USB-C.

3.5mm headphone jacks have mostly vanished from smartphones and tablets, leaving laptops one of their last holdouts — and even then, they’re gradually disappearing, too. Cherish your laptop’s 3.5mm headphone jack if it still has one by treating yourself to some IEMs. IEMs (in-ear monitors) aren’t your grandpappy’s $10 gas station headphones, no sir. IEMs will play your music like you’ve never heard it before, and on the cheap, too. One of many recommendations we can give is the MoonDrop CHU II, at only $22.99; the next-generation CHU III is out, but it doesn’t have enough reviews yet for us to recommend it.

Aside from thousands of happy customer reviews, the real feather in the cap of the MoonDrop CHU II is a recommendation from Crinacle, a respected name in the IEM community. Now admittedly, sound is an incredibly subjective thing, and one pair of IEMs that sound incredible to one person could sound like hot trash to another. But one thing is likely for sure: These will outperform any cheap earbuds that you have by miles, and possibly be better than your Bluetooth earbuds as well.

Presumably, you keep your laptop charger with you in a bag, and you may have a laptop model that charges with USB-C rather than a barrel plug. If that’s the case, you can kill two birds with one stone by buying a high-powered charging brick capable of charging your laptop, your phone, and other devices that need it. INIU’s 100W Charging Brick is a compact and affordable option.

The 100W charger is advertised to juice up a MacBook Pro to 56% in 30 minutes, so it should be plenty for most laptops and for charging a phone at the same time. It also comes with a nylon-braided cable; using whatever USB-C cable you have lying around is often a crapshoot since it may not support your desired charging speeds and at worst could be a fire hazard. Most impressive of all is the price. The INIU retails for $33. Anker’s 100W charger costs double.

A USB hub quickly becomes a must anytime you need more than your laptop’s allotment of available ports. Problem is, most laptop USB hubs are the dongle type that — let’s be real — are connected to your laptop with a prayer. We’d recommend the less popular, more niche class of USB hubs that try to look like an extension of your laptop rather than hanging off it. This is our personal recommendation, the Mogood (lovely name) USB Hub. It takes one USB Type-A port and transforms it into four — though only for data transfer.

Of course, whether this works for you depends heavily on what kind of laptop you have, but we figure these days, with laptops gradually transitioning to USB-C (and many of us still having a great deal of USB Type-A devices), you can still comfortably use your mouse dongles, thumb drives, and any other cables that aren’t yet up to the latest spec. The only downside is that it may cover up some of your other ports.

Hackers taking control of your webcam is still very much a thing, even if some computers — like MacBooks — have developed means to detect when a camera’s secretly in use. Some laptops include a built-in physical camera cover or a switch to physically disconnect the camera. If you don’t have one of those, covering it up with a simple piece of tape, a sticker, or a Post-it note works fine, just not in the long term. Fortunately, a more permanent camera cover is cheap and almost as good as the built-in ones.

It’ll cost you as little as $6.99 for a two-pack from CloudValley, and when you consider the damage a hacker could do if allowed to play voyeur on you, the cost is effectively nothing. That said, please do a bit of research before sticking one of these to your laptop screen. Some laptops leave an extremely small margin inside a closed laptop, causing any foreign objects to potentially damage the screen; this is particularly the case with MacBooks.

It might seem silly to buy a keyboard for a device that already has one built-in. But if you do a lot of typing, the short travel of those keys makes it feel like you’re slamming your fingertips on concrete for hours. Yeah, it hurts. Anecdotally speaking, the best relief for tired fingers — if you have to type a lot — is a mechanical keyboard. We could give you a long list of great wireless mechanical keyboards. The Aula F75 is a good choice because it’s rated well and is a 75% keyboard, meaning it’s more compact and portable to go with your laptop everywhere you take it.

What we like about this one is that it supports Bluetooth, 2.4 GHz, and wired mode; it has a fancy knob for changing the volume; and full RGB LED lighting. You can purchase the keyboard in 15 colorways.

We admit, mechanical keyboards are on the heavy side, and it’s not convenient having to bring one anywhere you want to type. However, there’s a reason mechanical keyboards have become so popular in recent years: They really do feel better to type on, and not just because of the clacky sound. Grab a friend’s and type on it for five minutes if you don’t believe us. You might be surprised.

You could buy a lot of mice for a laptop, and they’d probably be pretty good. But what if you’re looking for the most fully featured mouse your money can buy in the smallest form factor possible? We’d argue that the Logitech MX Anywhere 3S is the mouse of dreams.

It’s like the Logitech MX Master but shrunken down into an even smaller form factor. Same any-surface tracking, same insanely fast Magspeed scrolling (seriously, once you try it you won’t go back), same multi-device pairing, same forward and back buttons, and same quick charging. It doesn’t inherit everything (such as the horizontal scroll wheel or the thumb button), but it gets pretty close. It’s also appropriately smaller in price — only $89.99 on Amazon, with discounts going even lower.

Having used this one myself for years, it’s an exceptional mouse. It still has sufficiently good ergonomics to even be used regularly at home, while also being an excellent travel mouse. Really, the only downside is the price and the intrusive, poorly optimized Logi Options+ software. Think of the Logitech MX Anywhere 3S as a “you get what you pay for” kind of product.

If you do any sort of work between two or more different apps that need the entire screen, you simply must get a second monitor, or an ultrawide if you can afford it … unless you have a laptop, you might think. Well, think again. You’d be surprised at just how affordable a portable monitor is that you can bring with you anywhere.

An option we like is the KYY Portable Monitor, a 15.6-inch 1080p panel that will run you $69.99. It features two USB-C ports and a mini-HDMI port, and requires only Thunderbolt 3 or USB Type-C 3.1 to work with your laptop. And it really is portable. Less than an inch in thickness, less than 2 pounds in weight, complete with its own cover that also serves as the stand.

Really, the only downside with a second portable monitor is having to haul around yet another device, and it’s going to take you more time to set up and pack up; you will need to worry about plugging in and powering this thing. However, good luck finding a more portable — and more affordable — way to have a second monitor away from home.

Big, high-capacity power banks that can power your devices — and seemingly even the whole neighborhood — are nothing new or surprising these days. The problem is they’re pretty bulky. Calling them power bricks is apt, because they really feel as big and as heavy as a brick in the hand. So if you want that sort of capacity in a more reasonable form that can still charge your laptop (and other devices) at speeds better than a trickle, we recommend the INIU laptop power bank.

Reasons why: It has the 25,000 mAh capacity of typical big power banks, but is smaller than a soda can (in INIU’s words) and weighs 400 grams. A truly handheld large power bank if we ever saw one. The size can be deceiving; it boasts up to 100W charging, sufficient for most laptops out there and capable of fast-charging mobile devices that support it. Importantly, it comes with a 100W-rated USB-C cable that functions as a carry loop, too, so it is a short one. Perhaps that’s ideal, though, since you’ll want to keep this one close to your laptop anyway.

Raise your hand if your laptop cleaning routine consists of passing a cleaning wipe over the keyboard and screen. You’re not alone, but you can do better. Using household cleaning supplies or whatever you have available is a common mistake people make. Although it does work, certain cleaning agents can damage your device, stripping protective coatings off your screen or wearing away at the keyboard. Proper cleaning takes only a bit of extra effort — and the right tools — to keep your laptop clean and in good condition.

A comprehensive keyboard and laptop cleaning kit can be had in one compact package for only $16.99. It includes brushes, cleaning cloths, a sponge, a pen tip, and a spray bottle for cleaning fluid. It all comes in this handy rectangular box that you can take with you. The kit also includes things like a keycap puller in case you want to clean a portable mechanical keyboard that you use with your laptop. What we like most of all is that it’s compact enough that you could throw it in any backpack pocket and leave it there for when you need it.

It seems like most backpacks these days include a little internal sleeve for a laptop. If you want something smaller and more compact, though, there are bags that are in effect a laptop sleeve with a bag added on top of it, so to speak. We quite like this MoKo 14-inch laptop sleeve carrying bag. It comes with a carrying handle and a strap, and has enough space inside to fit your laptop accessories such as mice, charging bricks, batteries, cables, and likely most items mentioned on this list.

Size-wise, it’s better to think of this not as a bag, but as a mega laptop sleeve; it’s really just adding a pocket to the side and some handles for carrying. As such, it could make an acceptable companion to a large backpack, yet also be perfect for those situations when you just want to bring your laptop somewhere but would prefer to hang it on the strap rather than have to hold it.

Some people want their phone to not be distracting to them while they’re working on their laptop. But if you’re going for max dopamine drip, why not attach it to your laptop? This magnetic phone holder makes your phone hang off the side of your laptop’s screen for instant access so you can watch Reels and YouTube simultaneously.

Jokes aside, we could see how this could come in handy. Maybe you need to keep on top of work messages on your phone while handling the productivity tasks on your laptop. It could be a “second screen” of sorts if the idea of a portable monitor doesn’t appeal to you. We should note that this model in particular is aimed at iPhones, which have MagSafe support, though in theory it should work with any Qi2-compatible device.

Do be aware that there are ways to access your phone from your laptop, as long as it’s in Bluetooth range. iPhones have iPhone Mirroring, which works with a Mac. For Android devices and iPhone/Windows combinations, there are plenty of phone mirroring apps out there that will get the job done. If you want to keep your phone in your pocket — so you can’t be distracted by notifications — and only occasionally access it for something you can’t do on your computer, we’d recommend doing it that way.

It’s truly amazing how dusty your gadgets can get entirely on their own. You turn your back, and suddenly they’re buried in it like Pompeii. Cleaning cloths and compressed air cans do the job, sure, but you can make your life a million times easier if you get an electric compressed air duster. No more buying single-use cans that you have to throw away, just recharge your duster and you’re done.

There are a ton of electric compressed air dusters out there, but an affordable one that has consistently high reviews is the Wolfbox MegaFlow, a 110,000 RPM duster that comes with four nozzles. It only takes a few hours to charge and lasts 240 minutes, so in the 10 seconds it takes to dust your laptop, you probably will charge this thing once every few months.

It’s one of exceptionally few products on Amazon that earns the “customers usually keep this item” label, the polar opposite of the “customers usually return this item” label. The 4.6-star average rating across over 15,000 reviews agrees. Considering how hard it is to get to the dust that collects under the low keys of a laptop, this is a must.

Laptops are meant to go on your lap. It’s in the name. But let’s be real, laptops are about compactness, not comfort or efficiency. You probably want to use a mouse, a wrist rest, and other accessories, and you probably want the screen angled a bit better. That’s where a lap desk comes in.

There are a ton of options in this category, but the LapGear option we’ve chosen fits a full 15.6-inch laptop and includes a built-in wrist pad and mouse pad. Rather than using a folding tray design, it has cushions on the bottom that angle it up for better visibility and access to the keys. The cushion design will be preferable if you’re going to use the laptop anywhere beyond the bed. We admit, this is really just for at-home use, but it’s lightweight and has a handle so you could take it somewhere else if you wanted.

When researching and writing this article, we were aiming for a sort of “office in a backpack” approach. Items had to be as compact as reasonably possible with the assumption that most of them will be going on the road with you. However, we didn’t want anything that no one would actually use. None of that junk you see on most accessory recommendation lists. These devices were chosen by someone who actually has experience using them and knows what accessories really work with a laptop — and which ones don’t. We tried where we could to recommend things you might not have considered, rather than doing the typical mouse/USB hub/SSD dog and pony show.

Of course, we also wanted this list to be accessible to any budget. With a few exceptions, everything here will be what we’d consider affordable, though there are always cheaper alternatives out there in the situations where they’re not; you can get an incredible experience from less expensive alternatives to the Logitech MX Anywhere 3S if it’s too pricey, for example. And for good measure, everything here has enough good reviews to vouch for them.