Do you already have good, fairly-new laptop? I would prioritize that first. Preferably a mac of course. 
A Laptop might not have the portability of a tablet or phone, but you can do more with it There's just no denying that.
If you have a laptop, or once you get one, and you have money left over, then it's time to consider an iPad or iPhone. And at that point, I would have to say the iPhone would be next priority, THEN the iPad. Yes, the iPad is bigger, but the iPhone can go with you to more places and is more portable,and does double duty as your phone.
And, while an iPad is great, you can always wait till you have more cash to get one last. Notes can be taken on the laptop if you really want to. And if not, good ol' paper is still quite useful.
Texbooks on the iPad are nice, definitely, and if the university is on board with e-textbooks, then it's definitely worth looking at. But, not every college is onboard yet, and I know a lot of places that are still selling books on paper and will for some time. The cost of the paper textbooks are inflated, and a lot of times it's because that money is going into the pockets of the professors teaching the courses, who also wrote or co-wrote the book. Switching to iBooks or other electronic formats just exposes where all the inflated cash is going.
This is also why students of those universities that don't police that sort of thing get screwed a lot when a professor releases (and requires you to get) the "latest edition" of the text book for that year... which often has the same material, just a page or two is changed and the content is rearranged to make it harder for people with older editions to keep up in class. It also makes the book you bought pretty much worthless, when you try to sell it back at the end of the semester. At that point it becomes a nice decoration you can put on the shelf and never read again
Not saying everyone does this, but a lot of professors do, and it's those professors who you'll see not having their books on the iPad.
A Laptop might not have the portability of a tablet or phone, but you can do more with it There's just no denying that.
If you have a laptop, or once you get one, and you have money left over, then it's time to consider an iPad or iPhone. And at that point, I would have to say the iPhone would be next priority, THEN the iPad. Yes, the iPad is bigger, but the iPhone can go with you to more places and is more portable,and does double duty as your phone.
And, while an iPad is great, you can always wait till you have more cash to get one last. Notes can be taken on the laptop if you really want to. And if not, good ol' paper is still quite useful.
Texbooks on the iPad are nice, definitely, and if the university is on board with e-textbooks, then it's definitely worth looking at. But, not every college is onboard yet, and I know a lot of places that are still selling books on paper and will for some time. The cost of the paper textbooks are inflated, and a lot of times it's because that money is going into the pockets of the professors teaching the courses, who also wrote or co-wrote the book. Switching to iBooks or other electronic formats just exposes where all the inflated cash is going.
This is also why students of those universities that don't police that sort of thing get screwed a lot when a professor releases (and requires you to get) the "latest edition" of the text book for that year... which often has the same material, just a page or two is changed and the content is rearranged to make it harder for people with older editions to keep up in class. It also makes the book you bought pretty much worthless, when you try to sell it back at the end of the semester. At that point it becomes a nice decoration you can put on the shelf and never read again
Not saying everyone does this, but a lot of professors do, and it's those professors who you'll see not having their books on the iPad.
Last edited:
