MacBook or IPad for Uni?

Hi there, I’m wanting to study Orthoptics this year and was wondering if anyone (orthoptics or other healthcare students) have any advice on whether an IPad or a MacBook is better for my studies?

Reply 1

MrBanker

Hi, former medical student here. I used both devices quite extensively, but for lectures my go-to choice is the 2019 iPad Pro (yes, still working) with GoodNotes. What I do is the following: During lectures, I keep the powerpoint slides on my iPad and add important notes on the go. After the lectures, I revisit my notes and the lecture material and then switch to my MacBook. I mainly used Anki (digital flashcards). I take the lecture content together with the comments and notes from my iPad, combine it with important literature, and create several flashcard questions based on the material, and that’s basically it.

For research papers, term papers, etc., the MacBook or a laptop is the way to go because iPadOS still has clear limitations in this regard. However, for everything that happens during lectures, the iPad Pro, or newer iPad Air versions, is ideal. I’ve had my iPad Pro since early 2019, and it’s still working like a champ. For anatomy, physiology, biochemistry, math, etc., it has been the best tech purchase I’ve ever made. But as I said, creating efficient flashcards and writing long papers does not work as well on the iPad.

Reply 2

TNGFR

Original post

by marss:)

Hi there, I’m wanting to study Orthoptics this year and was wondering if anyone (orthoptics or other healthcare students) have any advice on whether an IPad or a MacBook is better for my studies?

You can get the baseline iPad and a solid Windows notebook than the price of the cheapest MacBook and get the best of both worlds- a lightweight & portable tablet for taking to lectures and taking handwritten notes, and a laptop with larger screen and full sized keyboard for dissertations and other more structured work. Your course has fairly basic needs so having the utility of an an affordable device in both categories will be more useful than a single more powerful device from either category on its own.

This is what I'd go for, costing you less than the cheapest current gen MacBook with over £300 to spare too. The base iPad is great for someone looking for basic note taking, with almost none of the advantages of the step-up Air being relevant for almost double the price, and this is a really well spec'd Windows laptop.

https://www.very.co.uk/apple-ipad-a16-2025nbsp11-inch-wi-fi/1601138535.prd
https://www.currys.co.uk/products/asus-vivobook-15-x1504va-15.6-laptop-intel-core-5-512-gb-ssd-silver-10290287.html

If you were determined to get a MacBook, you could grab a slightly earlier Airgen model that's still insanely quick alongside the base iPad above for under the £1000 cost of the current gen Air.

https://www.currys.co.uk/products/apple-macbook-air-13.6-2022-m2-256-gb-ssd-midnight-10273693.html