Hi

My fiancé had a look at the iPad Pro's this morning and was surprised that they weren't as expensive as she expected. Now she has a dilemma of either purchasing an iPad pro or a 11 or 13 inch Macbook Air with Student Discount.

She already has an iPad 2 and an 21 inch iMac.

Either these devices in question would be used for portability and photo editing with the odd web surfing, Facebook etc.

She would appreciate any advice on which device to purchase.

Many Thanks

Barry

Actually, I think the iPad Pro priced at almost £800 is expensive. Add-on the keyboard and stylus, which should be thrown in, and the cost is over £1,000. This is a serious rip-off, when converting the price of the US model (128gb wi-fi) the base unit is under £650. So, I won't be buying any time soon.

Back to your question, the best value at the moment is probably a refurbished Mac Mini (just make sure it's up to spec or of the kind that can be upgraded), which is very portable. Use it with any screen and USB keyboard mouse combo. You could get one of those with an i5cpu, 16gb ram and 512gb SSD for under £800. Much less, if you don't need a spec that high. For example 8gb with 500gb drive is around £429 from UK based suppliers. NOT Apple, who will charge you more for less.

^^ What, how is a mac mini portable? yes it can be carried, like most desk top computers but it's not what I would call portable, especially when comparing it to ipad Pro and an Air Book

Hi

The Mac Mini isnt portable in the sense that u couldnt use it in ur local Starbucks etc lol. Also its not an ideal solution if my fiance whats to do some college work downstairs whilst watchng the TV. Hence having a dilemma between the iPad Pro and Macbook Air.

I think we should also stop comparing prices to the US etc, we will never get the equivilant here in the UK.

Thanks

Baz

I do like the look of the Pro with the stylus, waiting to see what export options it will have for exporting to the "full desktop" programmes.

And yes people often quote US prices but quite happily forget "sales tax" which can add another 15% or so to the cost. I may wait till my next trip to the sates to buy one though.

Has to be the Macbook. Until they update IOS Safari or allow in HTML 5 compliant browsers then it is really hard to describe any IOS device as Pro.
Was this thelast time they did anything with HTML 5 in Safari webkit?
http://www.iphonehacks.com/2011/10/i...e-browser.html

It almost seems like 2011 was a one off prior to the compliance development freeze! Safari is dead last now, a very large negative and why it is described as the new IE6.

I guess it depends on two things. Are you really needing a laptop? Are you tied into the Apple Ecosystem?

The iPad Pro is not a laptop, it doesn't replace a laptop (despite what the adverts might suggest). It uses a mobile OS, not a desktop OS and whilst it's more powerful and bigger than an iPad, it's still a tablet with a mobile OS. Can you do everything you want on it? Probably. But is it more suitable than a laptop for such things? Probably not. It will have apps designed for the professional in due course but do not buy this thing if you want it as a laptop replacement.

I've owned a Macbook Air since 2012 and hands down it's the best laptop I've ever owned. It's light, quiet and runs everything I need it to run. I've happily run Photoshop on it for example. I've never had a single issue with it. It's not a desktop replacement but it does well enough for me to use it as my day-to-day work machine. After almost 4 years, it's still averaging over 4 hours battery life (though it never really did more than 6 hours when it was new).

However, the nature of my job means I need to upgrade finally. I looked at the options and I've gone for a Surface 4 Pro. It's more powerful than my MacBook Air, runs games (to a point) and uses a desktop OS so, for me at least, it will act as a laptop replacement. I compared the current set of Macbook Airs to the Surface Pro and the Surface seemed better suited to my needs. The MacBook Air is in dire need of a refresh. 2015 models are quicker than my 2012 model but not enough to consider the upgrade. They've focused on battery life more than anything else in recent years so the difference in performance, whilst notable, isn't as much as I'd expect for a gap of 4 years.

But as always, it's entirely down to what you do. That's why there's so many options

One interesting thing of note is that ARM compared their new Cortex A72 quite favourably to Intels Core M.

The 72 is the closest ARM has to Apples A9 implimentation of ARMv8 so whilst the A9 is only dual core it is certainly competitive in speed.
However, the high price tells me Apple knows it is niche, I guess a bit like the Apple Watch price determining that being niche.

If portability is an important issue, what about the Macbook? Incredibly light and portable, and has a way better screen than the Air. And despite what the posters below will inevitably say, its plenty capable for the stuff you mentioned, especially as a second machine.

And there's not a massive price difference between top spec Air and bottom spec Macbook if any.

This is only interesting in that the claim is that tablets are eroding digital skills in children.

I think it is hard to disagree there, in that I see the compromises made in my own 'convenient' tablet use.
I even wonder if the dumbed down but secure Chromebook adds to skills erosion too, even with a keyboard!

I recently brought a Mac book pro.

Excellent piece of kit which I would highly recommend. If you have other Apple products then the integration cannot be bettered.

If it's portability she's after why not just upgrade the iPad 2 to an Air 2? Seems crazy to fork out for the Pro or the Macbook Air when it doesn't look like she needs anything with much welly and in any event already has a desktop.

LOL. Are you serious!! She's already got an iMac. So how about this. She could actually sit at her desk in front of her iMac and do her college work properly without distraction and then when she's finished, go and watch TV. How about that? Sounds good..yes! Result, no dilemma!. Jeeeez.

Well if she wants to do work then a real computer is always the way to go. If it's just for web browsing, watching videos, emails and games then a tablet is always better Imo. However it depends on your budget. I have a Macbook and 2 iPads(Air 2, mini 3) so I use the Mac if I want to do any work and my iPads for entertainment. If I could only have one then it would have to be my macbook air because it does everything my iPads can do and more and it's light enough to take around with me if I wanted to.

I'll take a look at the pro at the weekend and see if it will fit into my set up. I do think it's over priced, considering you can get a macbook air for around the same price, or a macbook/ macbook pro for around the same price as the 128GB iPad pro with the keyboard and the pencil. However as I'm not in need of a laptop I can overlook the outrageous price if I like the pro in the flesh

I agree you really can't beat the integration. In the past I've had android phones, tablets and a windows laptop and even a chrome cast. However the integration is poor. Once I had the iPhone, my iPads and the apple TV it was a no brainer to get a mac and not a new windows laptop. I don't regret getting my Macbook air one bit. I've also bought an apple watch since so I'm fully integrated into the Apple ecosystem now.

Lucky you.

http://iphone.appleinsider.com/artic...rging-standard
Positivity there back in April.
http://m.theregister.co.uk/2015/11/1...arging_pad_qi/
"The only people who lose on the deal are ordinary folks. There are wireless power points springing up all over the place, including in cars, hotels, cafes and airports. Many homes have a wireless power system installed for at least one device, usually phones."

So later, I assume if correct, we got the 'tweamed' reality. The 'ecosystem' reality. Is that a £65 Apple Watch tax then?

Buying fully into Apple, you do have to think about implications, likely more so than other brands.

I do not know what that post is meant to be saying or why it has any relevance to the subject being discussed.

As a general rule (and regardless of brand) tablets are great for browsing, gaming and casual use but for anything more serious a laptop will be better. Only tablet I currently have that is close to being usable for occasional work (IT Business Analyst) would be my Linx 8 (using a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse) and that's only really because it runs a full desktop OS.

I would agree with that. I also have a surface pro 3 but to be honest, I've never used it as a tablet and although I like it I have found it a bit of a pain as a full blown laptop because the keyboard isn't great and I've ended up carrying around lots of 'extras' for network connection, usb, display connection, etc.

That is maybe down to the exact software you use, also getting available the 'no missing bits' fuller functionality of Office Professional.

Is the HDMI 100% OK, or does it have quirks?

http://www.zdnet.com/article/ipad-pr...rprise-failure

That headline is a bit over the top at the other end, the use of anything being what you are using it for. Even OS/X, at times, is unacceptable because of the dominance of Windows in enterprise.

But it is what you are used to, many finding the 'one single web engine only' IOS world fine. And maybe so fine that no one would accept Microsofts own walled garden, that being Windows RT.

Now maybe hybridtherory's girlfriend is the type of student who will find The Pro fine.
We simply can't answer that here.

Some basic gaming would be more appropriate than "great for gaming"

Thinking about it, the iPhone and iPad was initially a big success because, at the time, nothing was being given up to use them.

So, if your girlfriend is not currently usung a laptop, then that would mean a bit less is being given up to use the iPro. If she has a laptop, then you really do need to discuss it with her, maybe more so than discussing OS/X with her.

Quirks ? You mean on the Linx 8 ? Not spotted any. Fantastic piece of kit for £70 - running windows 10 too

With regards to working on a tablet (well one without a full desktop OS anyway) I find it restricted by lack of decent multi-window, restricted mukti-tasking etc. I'm sure some will have different opinions but I tend to have excel churning away whilst updating documents and monitoring email. Add in a lot of visio and PowerPoint and loads of copy/paste between them all and a tablet would be too clunky.