What’s the best laptop for med school?

I’m looking into saving for a laptop ready for next year.
I was looking into getting a MacBook but is this the best option or would something like an iPad be better?
Or are there any other cheaper laptops which are just as good?
What are people using at the moment
Thank you!!!

Medicine is not a degree that requires a powerful laptop, something basic with a Core i5 or Ryzen 5 processor and 8GB of RAM from the last few years will be absolutely fine. iPads are great for if you want to take handwritten notes, but will be a drawback when it comes to writing essays and dissertations due to the small screens and cramped keyboard attachments that are nowhere near as good for typing on as a proper laptop. However if you're already considering a MacBook, you could instead pick up an iPad and a more affordable Windows laptop together for the same £899 price of the cheapest MacBook that Apple currently selling and have the best of both worlds- an iPad for taking to lectures and note taking then a full sized laptop for when you need to focus on productivity.

Don't recommend modern PCs with 8GB of RAM....
I'd say a tablet with a keyboard and stylus would be far more handy than a laptop myself because it allows you to handwrite notes on the fly during lectures.
See my: 'So, you're going to medical school' thread for full details.

8GB is still fine for people doing non-specialised degrees that don't utilise anything more intensive than web browsers and Office suites.

Really, I'm using a sniff over 16GB right now as I sit here. The second you begin to multitask in Windows 11, you'll need more than 8GB. Try it and see.

Happily doing it right now, sitting here on my ageing XPS 13 with about 15 chrome tabs open alongside a couple of weighty excel sheets and Spotify playing and I'm hovering between 75% and 80% memory usage.

So yes, 8GB is not enough. Thanks for confirming what I said.

So I complete your challenge, do more multitasking than will ever be required by the OP's degree with literal gigabytes to spare, and that somehow proves your point about needing more?

An iPad and a laptop would be a great combination for you.
Take the iPad to lectures and doodle all over the lecture hand-outs as the lecture goes on.
Use the laptop for typing assignments, emails, spreadsheets etc.
Use either for web browsing.
Buy a sensible used laptop from ebay or facebook marketplace.
Buy the right sized laptop for your portability needs.
The bigger the laptop the better the screen size. The smaller the laptop the easier it is to carry around.
The stronger you are, the more easy it will be for you to carry a larger laptop.
I strongly prefer laptops that have plug-RAM slots instead of soldered RAM. It's easy to upgrade the RAM on plug-in slots. And about one in fifty laptops will fail with a RAM fault. Which is easy to fix with plug-in and is the end of life for soldered outside their warranty period.
These days, Linux with KDE is a better environment than Windows and MacOS. Get a techie friend to install Linux with KDE as soon as you get your laptop.
HP 840 G8's and 845 G8's are a sweet spot in 14" used laptops now. They are properly engineered premium business laptops. You should be able to get yourself a fully working, good cosmetic condition one of those for under £200. Paying that little for your laptop should help a lot in opening the path to you owning both a laptop and an iPad.
If a 15.6" laptop would be better for your needs, you're looking at either going more plasticky in the construction or in paying under £300 for something like a HP 850 G8 or 855 G8.

Again, I suggest you re-read the requirements for Windows 11 particularly where multitasking and also the use of things like Co-pilot are involved. 8GB of RAM is not enough for a modern PC.

I've heard the Linux this and Linux that a lot. This is not ideal from a medical school perspective as you have utterly no idea what resources, websites or other software may be needed. I recall colleagues having a lot of fun trying to get Chromebooks to work in the distant past.
Windows can be relied upon to work with nearly all possible software permutations. It is not perfect but Windows 11 is ultimately a heck of a lot easier to work for a new user than meddling with a Linux distro for the funzies at the outset of a medical degree. Does it even work with the Anki app? How are intending to run your Outlook/calendars if your medical school provides an academic calendar in this way?
Why add complexity for no return? A reasonable laptop is not a lot of money and can be ditched in 5 years once medical school is up if needs be.

Which medical school are you talking about?
Edingburgh, for example has this to say:
"It is possible to use speakers and a microphone built into your computer; but we find using a headset with earphones and a microphone works better. You will also need a webcam if this in not built in. Other than a standard word processing package you should not need to purchase any software, though you may need to download additional free programmes (for example an audio player to view some video material). For the best experience, use the latest versions of Chrome, Safari or Firefox for your web-browser."
https://medicine-vet-medicine.ed.ac.uk/postgraduate/clinical-education/how-you-will-learn/computer-requirements
The HP laptops I mentioned all come with a built in webcam, microphone, speakers and headset socket.
Linux with KDE comes with Libre Office that includes a decent standard Word Processing package. It also comes with the latest version of Firefox, with Chrome and Safari being easy to install.
Linux with KDE is way way better than running a Chromebook. They are 2 completely different environments. It makes no logical sense to link users having issues with Chromebooks to users with Linux KDE.
I cannot recommend Chromebooks. Not when really nice PC's can be bought used for under £200.
It is completely untrue that Windows 11 is a lot easier to work with than Linux with KDE.
KDE has much better default settings than Windows 11.
KDE has better customisation options than Windows 11.
Linux with KDE handles updates much much better than Windows 11.
Linux with KDE is an environment that acts as if it is a faithful servant or butler to the user. Windows 11 acts as if it knows best and the user is a servant to it!
Anki works fine on Linux.
Here's how to install it on Linux: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nxbPHfSkwqc
For Outlook Calendars, the Outlook web app works perfectly fine in Firefox on a Linux KDE laptop.
In addition, email clients such as Thunderbird have add-ons that allow synchronisation with academic / corporate Outlook Calenders.
This is 2026! Linux and KDE have been highly developed to the point where they provide a great user experience for a very wide range of users, including medical students.
Complexity for no return?
Compare how Windows 11 deals with updates compared to Linux with KDE! Windows 11 is utterly horrible from a user's perspective when it comes to updates.
Compare the opaque Windows 11 Regedit way of doing certain things compared to the Linux configuration files way of doing things.
Compare installing a networked printer on Windows 11 to Linux KDE!
Compare installing Windows 11 on an older computer OR when you don't have and don't want a Microsoft account; to installing Linux (eg Debian) with KDE!
Compare how often Windows 11 crashes compared to Linux KDE.
Compare how often Windows 11 gets completely corrupted and has to be reinstalled compared to Linux.
Compare how inherently insecure Windows 11 is compared to Linux KDE.
Compare how many viruses, trojans, malware there are for Windows 11 compared to Linux.
I agree with you about reasonable laptops being available for not a lot of money.
I'd go further than that and say that the right type of used premium business laptop, such a HP 840 or 845 G8 is a fantastic laptop for not a lot of money. The sort of thing where a medical student could have the joint best laptop on their course, whilst they paid the least!
And Windows 11 is silly in how it reports RAM usage. The more RAM installed in the laptop the more RAM it will report it is using at any given time.

Again, I would reiterate I am sat here with a PC doing not a lot in particular and using a bit of 14GB of RAM. You would not convince me to buy any modern PC with only 8GB of RAM.

Again, I don't think you've really understood the crux of what I have said. I have no intention of discussing every medical school in the UK. Good luck with Linux though and best of luck running Windows 11 with 8GB of RAM.

And here I am doing plenty and having no issues with 8GB, I must be suffering from some sort of cognitive issue.

8GB RAM is fine for most users.

Some things in IT are self-evident. Or very easy to ascertain with a bit of experimentation.
Such as 8GB RAM for most users.
When it comes to the fantastic used laptop deals that I come up with, there's few people on the planet that are on the same page as me.
Almost nobody has the same experience and combinations of expertise when it comes to laptop procurement.
And there's an awful lot of bad advice out there on the Internet when it comes to laptop buying.

Bad advice?
Like recommending people use Linux and learn a complete new OS for medical school? Great advice.