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Tablet vs Laptop for uni

Hey guys, so as I will be entering uni soon, I'm thinking of getting a new tablet or laptop for uni studying.

Right now, I have a macbook 12 inch which I bought 4 yrs ago, so to be honest I doubt how long this will last, so I would like to use this tablet/laptop I buy this time as the main device I use for university.

I will be studying medicine or at least health science related degree in university, and the basic task I think mainly includes note-taking, listening to lectures, PowerPoint making, doing assignments/writing reports/lab work excel analysis, etc. (Let me know if there's any other crucial thing I missed)

For tablet, I am mainly thinking for an iPad + magic keyboard, or the Surface pro (both with the corresponding pen). I am also open to others if u recommend any.

For laptop, Im thinking of a macbook 13 inch, probably a pro.

Also, the weight of the tablet is another crucial thing for me as I will be carrying it around quite a lot, but the storage space doesn't really matter as I mainly use drive to save my work.

Thanks!
Your 4 year old Macbook is barely worn in. As long as you can keep crumbs away from the keyboard, you chould get another 10 years faithful service out of it.

So, on that basis go with a laptop. The rather nice laptop that you already own.
(edited 2 years ago)
Reply 2
Avatar for bushywaltz
bushywaltz
OP
1
Original post by Dunnig Kruger
Your 4 year old Macbook is barely worn in. As long as you can keep crumbs away from the keyboard, you chould get another 10 years faithful service out of it.

So, on that basis go with a laptop. The rather nice laptop that you already own.

Oh really because I thought laptops usually last around 4 - 5 years I have heard?
Reply 3
Avatar for HL_43
HL_43
6
The lifetime of your mac really depends on your usage. It also depends on how much you can put up with it. In general laptops are good for about 5 years. After that you may experience slowness, less battery time, unavailable updates and software due to being a bit older etc. This all pretty much varies with the usage of the laptop. Say you use the laptop everyday it will cause these issues to appear sooner then if you just use the laptop once a week etc. In terms of getting a new laptop thats up to you but I would suggest if you do don't get a macbook as really they are a waste of money unless you are doing music producing or something. Generally you can find a better spec laptop then a macbook for the same price that you pay for that macbook.
Original post by bushywaltz
Oh really because I thought laptops usually last around 4 - 5 years I have heard?

The HP 8440p laptop that I've written 6500 posts on this forum is 10 years old.

I bought it used several years ago for £80.
Just after I bought it I fitted an SSD hard drive to it.
A couple of years ago I replaced the battery at a cost of about £20.

I'm not sure how much longer my laptop will last before it goes BER (Beyond Economical Repair). It might last for another 10 years.

On the other hand I've seen friend's consumer grade laptops go BER after 5 or 6 years due to things like the lid hinges not working properly and the plastic lid splitting near the hinge.

Your macbook is relatively well engineered. Apart from the keyboard which is prone to keys stopping working when crumbs get trapped under them.

There's an awful lot of poor to mediocre advice on laptops on the Internet. When you do Google searches on things like "Laptop Buying Advice" the first page of results will be full of poor to mediocre advice. Which when you read, could have been written by the same person.

This poor to mediocre advice annoys me. It's viral advice. You get inexperienced "enthusiasts" that read it (or watch it on youtube) and then start spreading it to their friends or on online forums.

I can only speculate as to why there's so much poor to mediocre laptop advice on prominent sites on the Internet.
I could speculate that there's a commercial agenda to selling more new laptops when someone originates a "laptops last 4-5 years" myth.
Or that their advice originated in the 1990's when laptop hardware was in its' infancy and was changing rapidly enough in an effort to keep up with the software that a 5 year old laptop would be redundant. This 1990's advice no longer applies in 2021.

The battery and the hard drive in your macbook are replaceable. Even if it's a model where Apple stupidly glued them in.
Keep using and enjoying your macbook till something stops working properly on it. And when it does, assess whether it's worth fixing or is BER.

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