I'm a professional photographer and I plan on doing essentially what you're suggesting. I wish there had been an iPad when I was a student!
I'd use the iPad with the Paper app and a stylus for taking notes in class and as textbooks become available in the iBook Store, you may not even need to carry any of your designated books.
My last generation setup was a MacBookPro 17" (late 2009) with a 30" Cinema display. I noticed that I only took the MBP with me to on shoot locations if it was absolutely necessary. It's still pretty heavy to carry in a camera bag and it's a very expensive item that I'm afraid to take my eyes off of.
The new setup is a retina iPad and an upcoming iMac.
I'm still working on developing a new workflow but ideally, Aperture 4 will have a companion app for iPad that will allow me to rate and keyword new photos and perform some basic editing like crop and colour correction with a sync back to Aperture on the iMac to do any heavy lifting. Even if this doesn't come to be, I can still be more confident with carrying the iPad to all my shoots using either iPhoto or even just the basic photo app to review photos on a larger screen. I can also switch to Lightroom which already has that Mac app + iOS companion app setup.
Back to your case in particular, I'd get a bluetooth keyboard and stand or one of those cases with those built in. For research, note taking, books, Pages documents and Keynote presentations, I can't see why you'd need a full computer anymore as a student.
I'd use the iPad with the Paper app and a stylus for taking notes in class and as textbooks become available in the iBook Store, you may not even need to carry any of your designated books.
My last generation setup was a MacBookPro 17" (late 2009) with a 30" Cinema display. I noticed that I only took the MBP with me to on shoot locations if it was absolutely necessary. It's still pretty heavy to carry in a camera bag and it's a very expensive item that I'm afraid to take my eyes off of.
The new setup is a retina iPad and an upcoming iMac.
I'm still working on developing a new workflow but ideally, Aperture 4 will have a companion app for iPad that will allow me to rate and keyword new photos and perform some basic editing like crop and colour correction with a sync back to Aperture on the iMac to do any heavy lifting. Even if this doesn't come to be, I can still be more confident with carrying the iPad to all my shoots using either iPhoto or even just the basic photo app to review photos on a larger screen. I can also switch to Lightroom which already has that Mac app + iOS companion app setup.
Back to your case in particular, I'd get a bluetooth keyboard and stand or one of those cases with those built in. For research, note taking, books, Pages documents and Keynote presentations, I can't see why you'd need a full computer anymore as a student.
