Before I begin, let me confess that I own both a laptop and an iPad (2 in fact 
– although one was given to me by my school). Having the privilege of owning both devices and using it for school over the past 8 months, I would like to share my experience using them and what I recommend if you only want to get one or the other. With that said, let’s get straight into the iPad vs laptop comparison.
I currently own an Asus Zenbook with pretty standard specifications including an Intel 10th Gen i7 processor and 16Gb of RAM. I had this laptop since my JC days and things are still running smoothly without any hiccups 
which I why I decided not to upgrade it going into university. I am neither a gamer and nor an expert in computers but the set-up I have on my laptop is decent enough for me to go about my daily life without running into any problems 
. I typically use my laptop to watch pre-recorded lectures, do up my notes on Notion as well as for web browsing, research, writing reports and occasional social media consumption. Oh, and I write my blog posts on my laptop too! 
Additionally, I own an external Prism+ 29″ monitor which I connect my laptop to when I am at home. I really enjoy the extra screen real estate that my ultrawide monitor gives me as I can open 2 full size windows size by side when I am doing my research and studying/writing my reports concurrently.
Since I decided not to upgrade my laptop for university, I decided to get myself an 11″ 2020 iPad Pro 128Gb Wi-Fi with the 2nd generation Apple Pencil 
. I got them at a 10% discount (iirc) during Apple’s Back-to-School sale to happens every end-July to mid-August. Currently, I use my iPad Pro to annotate my lecture slides, do practice questions from medical textbooks, prepare for my tuition lessons and consume social media content. I also use my iPad Pro for any sort of notetaking that I may need to do for my extracurricular activities.
Last but not least, I own an iPad Mini 5th Generation. This is the iPad that my school gave me and currently I barely even use it. The reason why my school issued all students an iPad Mini is specifically for notetaking during our clinical years (years 3 to 5). The device is incredibly portable and lightweight, and will easily fit into our white coats 
and scrubs, hence the reason. However, writing on the small screen of an iPad Mini is torturous to say the least. This is why my iPad Mini is often neglected in favour of my iPad Pro.
Now that you know which devices I own and how I use them on a daily basis, here’s my opinion on the pros and cons of each device and which type of tasks are better suited for the iPad and a laptop.
iPad
The handwriting 
experience on an iPad Pro is really the best of any tablet I have tried, no questions asked. Some professional artists 
have even adopted the iPad Pro for doing their designs and this speaks volumes about the iPad Pro’s handwriting capabilities. To me, writing should not be distracting, it should be as mindless as possible such that I can be fully focused on the content of the writing and not the actual process of writing itself. The iPad Pro has a pressure sensitive screen with a 120hz refresh rate and great palm rejection. All of this combined gives you a sense of confidence when you write on the screen of an iPad Pro. As you write, the lines appear almost immediately and there is no noticeable lag. You can also be assured that resting your hand on your iPad Pro screen whilst writing will not affect the quality of your writing whatsoever. If you want to go one step further and get the closest experience to actually writing on paper, you can always get a matte screen protector for your iPad.
With all that being said, if your course requires you to write, draw or design a lot, you should really give the iPad Pro a serious consideration 
. Additionally, if you are a fan of traditional handwritten notes, I assure you that doing so on an iPad Pro is WAY BETTER. I will write another short blog post on GoodNotes 5, the app I personally use for writing on my iPad Pro, honestly it is life-changing.
Apart from the awesome handwriting experience the iPad Pro provides, it is also a very capable computer. Web browsing is extremely fast, split screen multitasking is super convenient, doing powerpoint presentations and typing up word documents are simple and intuitive. There is no steep learning curve and everything that you’ve come to know and love from your working on your laptop pretty much the same on an iPad Pro . If you are a content creator, the iPad Pro should be able to handle moderate video editing and photo editing without a problem. If you are a gamer, you can definitely use the iPad Pro to game and not have to worry about it. If you just love watching Netflix and reality TV shows, the iPad Pro is great for that too since it has a super high resolution display and 4 powerful speakers on each corner of the device.
Last but not least, the USB C port of the iPad Pro is a game changer 
. Unlike past iPads which charge through Apple’s Lightning port, the iPad Pro uses a USB C port. This means that besides charging, you can also connect external storage devices to the iPad and transfer files to and from your thumbdrive/harddrive into the iPad like how you would do on a normal computer. This is the reason why I went with the lowest storage option on my iPad Pro (128Gb). There is so much to rave about when it comes to the iPad Pro and honestly I can spend a day talking about how much I love it. If you are still unconvinced about the iPad Pro, there are many tech channels on YouTube that run through the full features of the device and I highly recommend that you check them out
As for the cons of the iPad Pro, it will be its cost. The device itself costs over S$1000 
if you opt for the lowest specs possible and this is excluding the Apple Pencil 2nd Generation or the Apple Magic Keyboard. Personally, I don’t own the Magic Keyboard as I do most of my typing on my laptop but if you are one who will be doing quite some typing on your iPad then I think it might be worth considering. All in all, if you were to get the iPad Pro in it’s cheapest configuration with an Apple Pencil and the Magic Keyboard, you will be looking at a price tag of around S$1500… 
‘In that case, won’t I get the best of both worlds if I get a foldable touch screen laptop?!?!’
Well that’s what I thought too, but short answer is no 
. Firstly, no laptop I know of has the handwriting capabilities of an iPad Pro. Secondly, even if there is, the handwriting applications available on the iPad Pro (GoodNotes 5, Notability) far exceed those available on Windows. Finally, writing on a screen folded on top of a keyboard is very different (in a bad way) from just writing on a screen.
Laptop
If your course requires minimal handwriting, getting a laptop is the way to go. Whilst the iPad is without a doubt a very capable computer, there are some tasks which a laptop still handles better. Coding as well as computation of data and statistics in Microsoft Excel as examples of such tasks. This is the reason why I use my laptop to do my lab reports which requires a good amount of data computation 
and statistical analysis 
. In terms of overall usability, a laptop definitely has the edge over an iPad. In terms of portability, a laptop is not as portable as an iPad but it is not far off either. In terms of battery life 
and performance, assuming you also spend ~S$1500 on a laptop, you should be getting similar levels on both devices. All in all, I think you can never go wrong with getting a laptop especially if you don’t have one or the one that you have is too old to be usable on a day-to-day basis.
Verdict
Personally, when I need to go for physical lessons, I always bring my iPad Pro along with me and seldom, if ever, bring along my laptop for the simple reason that my iPad is so much more portable and less of a hassle. However, the greatest differentiating factor between the 2 devices is the handwriting capability, all other features come second to that. If having the best digital writing experience is important to you, the iPad Pro is the way to go for sure 
. If you do not need to do much writing, just get a laptop.
If you have read till the end, thanks for sticking around!
Let me know your opinions on iPad vs laptop in the comments section below. If this post has helped you in one way or another, consider sharing it so that hopefully other students can benefit from it too! Reach out to me if you have any questions, I will be happy to answer them. If not, see you in the next blog post 
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