Hello! I'm a student and I've been working on digitizing my library. I read books and papers on my iPhone 6 at home, work, on the bus, etc...and I find this very convenient, often more so than sitting and staring at a laptop – so I've been thinking about getting an iPad Air and using that instead of my old white macbook. All I really do is read and annotate PDFs (books or essays) and word process/write papers.
So, instead of lugging around my white macbook, I'm torn between buying an iPad (with a portable keyboard) and using that for school OR buying a refurbished 11" Macbook Air to replace my old 2009 white Macbook. I'm drawn to the iPad because it seems more casual and more convenient for reading on the bus and using in different environments. I'd use it for email, browsing, reading, taking notes, writing paper drafts (which would ultimately be completed on my iMac). But, on the other hand, maybe the Macbook Air is more practical/responsible in the long run given that both my computers are so old. I'm also wondering if the resale value and technological longevity of the Macbook Air would be superior to the resale value of the iPad Air. Would the iPad Air probably be more relatively outdated in 3 years time than the Macbook Air?
I currently have:
— Early 2008 iMac 24" 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD + 1TB HD (I replaced the optical drive with a storage HD). It seems to run as good as new with OS X Yosemite
— Early 2009 Macbook (White), 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD; I replaced the battery a half a year ago.
Everything is conveniently synced up in the apple ecosystem. I'm impressed with how old these computers are and how well they keep up with new software – especially the iMac, which still looks beautiful and is very snappy.
The iMac has been running as good as new as far as I'm concerned – it's even quicker in simple tasks than the new iMacs at school, presumably because of the quick SSD. But simply being 7 years old, there is the worry that something might go bad. The Macbook's shape isn't as good (the screen is worn), but it's still fully functional (except for one problem in Safari where certain webpages freeze up the system and the screen begins to flicker – but this doesn't happen in Google Chrome – this only started yesterday and I am worrying the GPU is going or something; it seems like a problem with flash or the GPU, I don't know).
So, instead of lugging around my white macbook, I'm torn between buying an iPad (with a portable keyboard) and using that for school OR buying a refurbished 11" Macbook Air to replace my old 2009 white Macbook. I'm drawn to the iPad because it seems more casual and more convenient for reading on the bus and using in different environments. I'd use it for email, browsing, reading, taking notes, writing paper drafts (which would ultimately be completed on my iMac). But, on the other hand, maybe the Macbook Air is more practical/responsible in the long run given that both my computers are so old. I'm also wondering if the resale value and technological longevity of the Macbook Air would be superior to the resale value of the iPad Air. Would the iPad Air probably be more relatively outdated in 3 years time than the Macbook Air?
I currently have:
— Early 2008 iMac 24" 2.8GHz Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM, 256GB SSD + 1TB HD (I replaced the optical drive with a storage HD). It seems to run as good as new with OS X Yosemite
— Early 2009 Macbook (White), 4GB RAM, 128GB SSD; I replaced the battery a half a year ago.
Everything is conveniently synced up in the apple ecosystem. I'm impressed with how old these computers are and how well they keep up with new software – especially the iMac, which still looks beautiful and is very snappy.
The iMac has been running as good as new as far as I'm concerned – it's even quicker in simple tasks than the new iMacs at school, presumably because of the quick SSD. But simply being 7 years old, there is the worry that something might go bad. The Macbook's shape isn't as good (the screen is worn), but it's still fully functional (except for one problem in Safari where certain webpages freeze up the system and the screen begins to flicker – but this doesn't happen in Google Chrome – this only started yesterday and I am worrying the GPU is going or something; it seems like a problem with flash or the GPU, I don't know).
