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iPad iPad Air 64 GB for accounting student

eatingwithjin

eatingwithjin

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Nov 11, 2020
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Hi guys soo I'm kinda in dire need for opinions.

I'm currently a first-year accounting student. I'm thinking about getting an iPad Air 3 (2019) for an extra device to accompany my 256GB Macbook Air (2019) and well my old (but still going strong) iPhone 6s. Anyways, I'm thinking of getting the 64 GB one since I'm not sure how many storage I'd use and it's way cheaper and ofc fits my budget. However, my friends told me that I should get the 256 GB instead. I'm not exactly sure I'd use my iPad for installing accounting software but I'd definitely use it to store books n docs, take notes, use zoom, and microsoft office tasks. Planning to do my video editing there as well (not heavy ones though, just the occasional school tasks).

Honestly I want to buy the 256 one but given the fact that I need the iPad before my new semester starts (in Feb), and I'm on a tight budget here, now I'm confused. I'm able to afford the 256 GB one but it comes with the cost of me getting the additional accessories like probably 3 months later (bcs I need to save up :(). Anyway, what do you guys think?

Should I get the 64 GB one (and apple pencil, etc. ) or should I get the 256 GB one (minus the apple pencil, screen protector, case for 3 months), or should I save up first and buy the 256 GB + accessories in August? (The latter kinda scares me bcs I don't think I'd be able to hold my money that long w/out tempted to buy anything). Any kinds of advice would be gladly appreciated.

Thank you :D

Disclaimer: For the video editing part, it's usually less than 10-mins video assignments and I usually delete the videos after I submit them. I kinda want to highlight the 256 gb macbook part as well since I initially thought they'll be enough to support the iPad (but now I legit have no idea)
 
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If you plan on doing much video editing, 64 GB is not going to cut it. 256 minimum comes highly recommended.
 
ericwn said:
If you plan on doing much video editing, 64 GB is not going to cut it. 256 minimum comes highly recommended.
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I've probably kinda exaggerated that video editing point here. It's mostly less than 10-mins video for school and I usually delete it after submission.

Do you still think I should get the 256 one? (I'm not forcing u to change ur opinion but well it's mostly me stating wrong things huhu)
 
I mean if you have a chance to buy the cheaper one with a good return policy, order it and try it out in real life. I record 4K with an iPhone almost daily and find myself often low on storage before I’m able to load stuff into the cloud somewhere.
 
ericwn said:
I mean if you have a chance to buy the cheaper one with a good return policy, order it and try it out in real life. I record 4K with an iPhone almost daily and find myself often low on storage before I’m able to load stuff into the cloud somewhere.
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Wow this is definitely a really great idea. Okay, I'll look for one!! Thank you :D
 
I think 64gb is terribly tight. You should expect 4-5 years of life minimum from this iPad, and I think over that time you will feel very constrained. Could the lower capacity work? Sure, if you use cloud storage and plan on having constant internet access--one strategy could be to store most content on the cloud and download to the device as you need it. Think of it this way--you can add an Apple Pencil or a fancy case any time; what you can't add later is more storage to the device.
 
VideoFreek said:
I think 64gb is terribly tight. You should expect 4-5 years of life minimum from this iPad, and I think over that time you will feel very constrained. Could the lower capacity work? Sure, if you use cloud storage and plan on having constant internet access--one strategy could be to store most content on the cloud and download to the device as you need it. Think of it this way--you can add an Apple Pencil or a fancy case any time; what you can't add later is more storage to the device.
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The last sentence hits hard and honestly makes so much sense D: Thanks a lot!!
 
If you're tight on budget, save money first. You still have your Macbook Air anyway.
From a different perspective, I would ask what things you can do on the iPad that you cannot do on the Macbook. If you can still do everything on the Macbook, I would consider upgrading your iPhone first.

Anyway, back to the iPad. I wouldn't say 64GB is tight. It depends on what you're going to fill it up with. It's too bad that Apple doesn't make a 128GB version, but that would be a comfortable amount. If you think you're going to put a lot of apps and games on the iPad, then 256GB is the way to go.
 
Well look at how much space your using now for your data on the MacBook.

I think many people buy a lot of storage they’ll never use. I agree 64 can be tight. But also 256 gets only fully utilized by very few use cases.

I have a 128, and currently use about 55GB. However a lot of games on the device I have never used, movies I watched once and never again, so could easily cut 10-20GB. I still went with 128 to be sure, but I don’t see how I’d ever use 256.

so just check how much you use now, how much of that would be fine in iCloud.

you can’t upgrade the storage, but don’t upgrade to crazily high specs you never use out of anxiety.
 
ian87w said:
If you're tight on budget, save money first. You still have your Macbook Air anyway.
From a different perspective, I would ask what things you can do on the iPad that you cannot do on the Macbook. If you can still do everything on the Macbook, I would consider upgrading your iPhone first.

Anyway, back to the iPad. I wouldn't say 64GB is tight. It depends on what you're going to fill it up with. It's too bad that Apple doesn't make a 128GB version, but that would be a comfortable amount. If you think you're going to put a lot of apps and games on the iPad, then 256GB is the way to go.
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I think I need an extra device since my club meetings and classes like to overlap one another. I've tried using my phone before but it was very uncomfortable since the screen is very small. As for the new phone, I've thought about it but I don't think it'll solve my current problem. And I kinda have attachment issues with this one 😔

I also aim to go paperless so probably it's going to be filled with notes and documents.

Thank you for responding!! 🥺
 
iDron said:
Well look at how much space your using now for your data on the MacBook.

I think many people buy a lot of storage they’ll never use. I agree 64 can be tight. But also 256 gets only fully utilized by very few use cases.

I have a 128, and currently use about 55GB. However a lot of games on the device I have never used, movies I watched once and never again, so could easily cut 10-20GB. I still went with 128 to be sure, but I don’t see how I’d ever use 256.

so just check how much you use now, how much of that would be fine in iCloud.

you can’t upgrade the storage, but don’t upgrade to crazily high specs you never use out of anxiety.
Click to expand...
I've used about 8.5 GB for apps, 0.5 GB for books and about 5 GB to store documents. (And the system itself took about 37 GB. It's crazy I know💀)

Anyway, I don't have any predictions about how much of the real storage in iPad that can be utilized. Do the systems take up that much?

Also, thank you for the reply 🤩
 
I have a 64GB 2017 iPad Pro and I’ve edited multiple video projects on it, some with 4K and 4K 60fps video, and I still have room without the projects being deleted. If you have cloud storage like iCloud, you can always store all of your stuff there and only download files and videos on to the device when you need them, which saves space too.

With how little space you use now and if you delete your video projects when you’re done with them, you should be fine imo. You can always choose to shoot lower res video too (like 1080 or 720) if you really need to save space.

Like others have said, it’s always better to have more space than not enough. But it sounds like to me you’ll be fine with 64GB.
 
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I have a new iPad Air on order for my wife, replacing a 6th generation iPad that she has been using for general use. She takes lots of photos and videos of cooking projects. The 6th gen iPad is 128 GB and 77.7 GB is currently used, 50 GB available.

This is not heavy video editing usage and I'm sure we could clean up a lot of the photo and video files that are stored on the iPad, but I offer it as simply an example for comparison.

I ordered our iPad Air with 256 GB of storage.

(edit: additionally, if we want to download any movies, or music, then that would be a further reason for getting plenty of storage. The 77.7 GB in our 6 gen iPad is almost entirely photos).
 
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xxray said:
I have a 64GB 2017 iPad Pro and I’ve edited multiple video projects on it, some with 4K and 4K 60fps video, and I still have room without the projects being deleted. If you have cloud storage like iCloud, you can always store all of your stuff there and only download files and videos on to the device when you need them, which saves space too.

With how little space you use now and if you delete your video projects when you’re done with them, you should be fine imo. You can always choose to shoot lower res video too (like 1080 or 720) if you really need to save space.

Like others have said, it’s always better to have more space than not enough. But it sounds like to me you’ll be fine with 64GB.
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Wow okay, this is a good idea. Thanks a bunch!! :D
 
Phil77354 said:
I have a new iPad Air on order for my wife, replacing a 6th generation iPad that she has been using for general use. She takes lots of photos and videos of cooking projects. The 6th gen iPad is 128 GB and 77.7 GB is currently used, 50 GB available.

This is not heavy video editing usage and I'm sure we could clean up a lot of the photo and video files that are stored on the iPad, but I offer it as simply an example for comparison.

I ordered our iPad Air with 256 GB of storage.

(edit: additionally, if we want to download any movies, or music, then that would be a further reason for getting plenty of storage. The 77.7 GB in our 6 gen iPad is almost entirely photos).
Click to expand...
77.7 GB for pictures is honestly insane :O but it's good that it works on you and your wife. If only I can opt for 128...

Anyway, thank you!! :)
 
Bballrob said:
As a fellow accountant, get the 256 GB model.
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How INTERESTING 😳. Why do you think so? Will the books and docs become that massive? 🙃 I'd be really really grateful if you can break em' down and tell me what kind of things I'd put in my iPad as an accountant (honestly, I don't see any features that I'd use specifically as an accounting student other than taking notes and doing excels) :/
 
eatingwithjin said:
77.7 GB for pictures is honestly insane :O but it's good that it works on you and your wife. If only I can opt for 128...

Anyway, thank you!! :)
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Sorry but 77 GB is far from insane. Any photography enthusiast will capture more in a short time.
Plus most people tend to use photos way more than in the past hence the amount of storage used for average photography is growing. More megapixels and raw format usage make files bigger too.
 
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Phil77354 said:
She takes as many short videos as photos, which (I think) explains the large amount of storage being used . . .
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They must be in high-resolution and great quality, right? I mean I'm no photographer but I like using my bro's Iphone 11 and they take a lot of memories even when only being used for taking mirror selfies :/ It's great you bought the 256 GB one for her :D
 
ericwn said:
Sorry but 77 GB is far from insane. Any photography enthusiast will capture more in a short time.
Plus most people tend to use photos way more than in the past hence the amount of storage used for average photography is growing. More megapixels and raw format usage make files bigger too.
Click to expand...
Darn, I didn't know that. I compared it to my non-photographer gallery (which consists of 6,000-ish photos) and they took up less than 7GB. I mean that's reasonable since I don't have extra cool cameras equipped in my iPhone 6s. Sorry if my remark sounds too far-off :(
 
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