For which tasks do you PREFER using an iPad to a Macbook Air.

[thelookingglass]

Surprised by the number of people who prefer their MBA over the iPad for tasks like browsing. I prefer my iPad hands down. I have the 11" MBA. It's a nice little machine, but it gets hot on my lap and the battery only lasts half as long as the iPad's. I also can't flip it any which way like I can with the iPad.

To answer the OP's question, I prefer my iPad over the MBA for browsing, ebook reading, watching movies, etc. I pretty much use my iPad for 95% of the time at home and my iMac the other 5. My MBA really only gets used when I'm traveling or when other people are using both my iPad and my iMac at the same time. When I'm just out and about around town, it's also much easier to carry around the iPad ... and a lot less awkward pulling out the iPad to do something as opposed to a full fledged laptop.

 

[blackreplica]

I prefer the ipad for travel,light browsing, reading books,magazines & pdfs, and gaming. For the rest, i do it on my MBP

 

[ChristianVirtual]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_1 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8G4 Safari/6533.18.5)

Same as many: iPad for browsing/ easy mailing and Kindle. Less game; but X-plane really impressed me.
MBA for development on the road; in sync via git to my iMac

 

[katyoshi]

I think with the speed and ongoing technological ability and advancement of the iPad, it may be a good device to use to be productive. But again, for long papers, I would rather either use a MBA or bring with me a Bluetooth apple keyboard. The thing I would be scared of the is lack of autosave feature on the iPad pages/iWork set. So if the app crashes and you didn't save in the beginning, that sucks.

 

[Xeperu]

It's easier to state what activities I prefer my MBA for and for which activities I get my iPad2 out.

MBA:
Typing
Spreadsheets
Video (usually through the big screen, although this might be changed to an AppleTV)

iPad:
Reading
Browsing internet (Pretty much only reading news, usually through a news aggregator, or through a news source specific (WSJ, NYT etc) application.
Music (although I listen to last.fm on my macbook)
Photos
Games (i don't like pc gaming too much these days, I prefer casual stuff like TiltToLive, Fruit Ninja and Infinity Blade).

 

[Night Spring]

The thing I would be scared of the is lack of autosave feature on the iPad pages/iWork set. So if the app crashes and you didn't save in the beginning, that sucks.

iWorks for iPad do have autosave. What made you think they didn't?

 

[FutureStan]

I think with the speed and ongoing technological ability and advancement of the iPad, it may be a good device to use to be productive. But again, for long papers, I would rather either use a MBA or bring with me a Bluetooth apple keyboard. The thing I would be scared of the is lack of autosave feature on the iPad pages/iWork set. So if the app crashes and you didn't save in the beginning, that sucks.

iWork on iPad doesn't have Autosave?

If anything, the iPad is better at it, they are actually planning on implementing Autosave in Lion (Their next OS X version) as part of that "Back to the Mac" approach.

http://www.apple.com/macosx/lion/

 

[PhoneI]

I prefer my iPad for...browsing on the couch or bed, playing games, reading books and the news, checking something quickly, and video chat (for some reason I hate doing this from my Air).

 

[Sounds Good]

Which one do you guys think is better for typical web browsing?

Thanks.

 

[christophermdia]

I use my air for web browsing in bed, at work, at lunch, word processing, heavy emails, excel files, powerpoint.

I use my ipad for browsing on the go, in the car, at the malls, in a coffee shop, watching movies on the go, in a plane, web browsing in a plane, take with me to meetings for taking notes, accessing files...etc. The battery life lends itself to using in these manners and leaving your air for heavier tasks.

I think they both have their place, I also have a MBP I use for more intense activities. I would feel lost without the iPad since I have gotten use to its great battery life for the above tasks. The air is so light and portable that I couldnt imagine having anything bigger for a computer.

I have a place for both machines, some may find these tasks redundant but then again depends on your "geekiness" and affordability.