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Is the iPad 2 a legitimate substitution for college freshmen?

R

rockinmorockin

macrumors member
Original poster
Apr 20, 2011
51
0
I was talking to my dad and he brought this up. You can get a keyboard, Microsoft Word, Excel, and so much more with the iPad.

I think that it could be great for note taking, reading, and typing documents but I'm skeptical about not having a laptop at all. I only have 16 GB (i still have 14 left and have all my music on it and a dozen apps).

You can google it and see how some colleges are offering ipads or laptops.

What do you think?
 
87am said:
Not a substitute for a notebook, but it can be a compliment.
Click to expand...
Yes, but whether or not a student MUST have a laptop for college is questionable (assuming he or she has a desktop at home).

It sounds like you already have an iPad. Why don't you just try going through the first couple of months of college with an iPad alone. You'll then be able to determine whether a laptop is necessary yourself. Better than taking advice from random strangers.
 
Try it out without a laptop and use the money for other stuff. I use quickoffice HD. I store everything in my google docs or dropbox "cloud" accounts. You can then access the documents on any computer, even in a computer lab using MS office.

With a wireless bluetooth keyboard you can type in your room, save to the cloud, and then print at the lab and not have to worry about a printer. If your roomates have a printer you can airprint to it. There is free software that allows you to airprint through any mac or PC hooked to a printer so you could print using that printer.

Colleges have wifi everywhere now so the cloud is not an issue.

Thoughts?

The ipad is twice the stuff we used and that wasn't that long ago.
 
He's probably going off to school in the Fall and has a ipad 2. Instead of getting a laptop his pops is like, you already have an ipad, just get a keyboard.
 
Get a low-end MacBook Pro for college. Don't even consider the iPad in its current form. You'll thank me later. I have a recent grad at home who thinks my iPad is great and plays with it on occasion, but grabs his MBP 99.99% of the time.
 
Im not sure why everyone says it wouldnt be good. I wish I would have had mine in college. It all depends on what you are using it for. The majority of students just need a computer for research and typing some papers. The iPad would be perfect for that. If you get Apple's suite of software (Pages, Keynote, Numbers, etc) along with a keyboard then you can do all that easily.
 
Being a history major myself, I could easily trade my mbp for an ipad in terms of work and note taking, but only if I had a desktop at home. I would say it all depends on your major. Any heavy lifting or term papers could be done on that and all your music would be on it to sync with your ipad. You could even buy one of those nifty zagg shells with the keyboard attached (I've seen them here at my university in class) and get all of your notes that way.
 
Unless you truly are storing everything in the cloud, having an ipad only sounds dangerous. You need a way to back up your data in case the ipad gets lost or fails.

But even then, I wouldn't trust the cloud. There is a story today that Amazon's service had some extended downtime. Better to have a laptop or laptop+ipad that you backup to an external drive.
 
You need an actual computing environment of some sort for college, and not just an iPad. This can come as a desktop or a laptop, a Mac or a PC (or god forbid a Linux box). But you will end up needing the capabilities and flexibilities that one provides.

Especially if you plan on going into any major that requires either writing papers (philosophy, history, &c), lab reports (physics, chemistry, &c), or programming (math, computer science, &c).

Perhaps in a few years, that picture will be different. But right now, you absolutely need a full computer.
 
rockinmorockin said:
I was talking to my dad and he brought this up. You can get a keyboard, Microsoft Word, Excel, and so much more with the iPad.

I think that it could be great for note taking, reading, and typing documents but I'm skeptical about not having a laptop at all. I only have 16 GB (i still have 14 left and have all my music on it and a dozen apps).

You can google it and see how some colleges are offering ipads or laptops.

What do you think?
Click to expand...
An ipd2 would definitely eat less than a college freshman.
 
grbspecb said:
Try it out without a laptop and use the money for other stuff. I use quickoffice HD. I store everything in my google docs or dropbox "cloud" accounts. You can then access the documents on any computer, even in a computer lab using MS office.

With a wireless bluetooth keyboard you can type in your room, save to the cloud, and then print at the lab and not have to worry about a printer. If your roomates have a printer you can airprint to it. There is free software that allows you to airprint through any mac or PC hooked to a printer so you could print using that printer.

Colleges have wifi everywhere now so the cloud is not an issue.

Thoughts?

The ipad is twice the stuff we used and that wasn't that long ago.
Click to expand...

i like this answer...and yes i will be starting college in the fall, 10 hours away from home so i won't be using a desktop.
 
rockinmorockin said:
I was talking to my dad and he brought this up. You can get a keyboard, Microsoft Word, Excel, and so much more with the iPad.

I think that it could be great for note taking, reading, and typing documents but I'm skeptical about not having a laptop at all. I only have 16 GB (i still have 14 left and have all my music on it and a dozen apps).

You can google it and see how some colleges are offering ipads or laptops.

What do you think?
Click to expand...
I hope you will be studying grammar in college.
 
GraphicsGeek said:
Im not sure why everyone says it wouldnt be good. I wish I would have had mine in college. It all depends on what you are using it for. The majority of students just need a computer for research and typing some papers. The iPad would be perfect for that. If you get Apple's suite of software (Pages, Keynote, Numbers, etc) along with a keyboard then you can do all that easily.
Click to expand...

Well, the "majority" may need it for research and typing some papers, but there are a whole lot of different courses of sturdy in college, some of which require math and science. Pages and Numbers are nice, but, as an example, if I need to deal with some heavy-duty spreadsheet or statistics Numbers would be a lousy choice.
 
rockinmorockin said:
i like this answer...and yes i will be starting college in the fall, 10 hours away from home so i won't be using a desktop.
Click to expand...

I won't recommend living on an iPad without immediate access to any personal computers. You'll want your own computer to sync (backup) and update your iPad. Imagine losing your iPad without a backup...

poloponies said:
Well, the "majority" may need it for research and typing some papers, but there are a whole lot of different courses of sturdy in college, some of which require math and science. Pages and Numbers are nice, but, as an example, if I need to deal with some heavy-duty spreadsheet or statistics Numbers would be a lousy choice.
Click to expand...

I agree, this is where a desktop would be useful. On the other hand, try taking notes with lots of hand sketched figures and equations. You'll appreciate an iPad.
 
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