My D19 has up to $1,500 to spend to replace her aging (2012) MacBook Pro. She is committed to sticking with a Mac. I know the iPad has come a long way recently and she was wondering if the iPad Pro paired with a keyboard would be a decent replacement for a MacBook Air? She won’t be doing anything more than research, word processing, and entertainment on it.
Macbook Air is perfect for school works. I feel like it is a better option for college student rather than iPad Pro.
Do be aware that the Macbook Air cannot be plugged directly into an ethernet cable. Some colleges require ethernet for the dorms(check if hers does or if she can use wifi) Luckily you can buy an adapter that plugs into the charging port with an ethernet end. I think the adapter is around $12.
The new macbook pro cannot be pluggled directly into an ethernet cable. The new version as super light so I would only go with the air if you really think the pro is not worth purchasing.
My daughter has a small MacBook (the small rose gold one they don’t make anymore) that I thought she loved until I got a new IPad Pro for my business in October. She’s stolen it almost every single day to make her class notes. She loves using the apps with the pen. Her class notes are amazing with typed bits, pictures, and handwritten parts. she told me her math teacher uses one in class by plugging in his iPad to the projector. He hand wrote the math notes and solutions then posted them to Blackboard afterwards. That’s how she first saw how cool it was.
My daughter says that the iPad is great for multitasking research and note taking but not so great for formatting on google docs. It’s fine for Word with the keyboard.
She thinks she’d rather have an iPad Pro for college if she could only take one because she’d actually use it in class. She wouldn’t take her MacBook in to class but the iPad is so small. The iPad Pro has a usb-c connector so you can get flash drives that have a usb on one end and a usb-c on the other if she needed to plug in to a printer or other computer.
Is it going to be a surprise? If not then can you visit an Apple store and see them in person and let her play around with the iPad Pro? Also, i think you can return to Apple within 30 days so if she hated what you got her or if changed her mind then that’s an option.
If it were me then I’d choose the MacBook Air because I love mine but thought I’d offer my daughter’s perspective based on a few months of usage. Can’t really go wrong with either though. They’re both great.