Best iPads for Note-Taking and School Work: A Parent’s Honest Guide After Testing Two Models
Last August, I stood in the electronics section of Target holding two open iPad boxes, my 8th grader’s crumpled school supply list crinkling in my back pocket. He’d just finished cross-country practice, was leaning against the display shelf eating a sour gummy worm he’d pulled out of his gym bag, and said, “Mom, all my teachers say taking notes on the iPad is way easier than hauling five notebooks. Also, Ms. Henderson lets us turn in all assignments through it.”
I’d already dropped $120 on new cleats and a graphing calculator that cost more than my first used car, so I wasn’t thrilled at the idea of dropping another $800 on a tablet that would probably get dropped in a locker within a month. A teacher friend of mine let us borrow her old 9th generation iPad for the first month of school to test, and we ended up buying a discounted 5th generation iPad Air through the school’s education store. We had both in our house all school year, and I learned way more about what actually works for school note-taking and work than any tech review site ever told me.
The first big difference we noticed was storage. The borrowed 9th gen was the base 64GB model. For the first month, it worked fine. Then my son downloaded all his digital textbooks, saved a semester of notes and PDF worksheets, added a couple of games he plays with friends at lunch, and got the dreaded “storage full” pop-up halfway through a unit on cell division. He spent 20 minutes after school deleting old photos and offloading apps every Sunday just to make room for new assignments. The Air we bought had 256GB, and we never got that pop-up once all year. That’s not to say 64GB never works—if your kid does all their work in the cloud and only keeps a handful of apps on the device, it’s fine. But for most middle and high schoolers, who forget to back things up and download every new app their friends are using, 128GB is the minimum you should get. It’s only $50 extra to upgrade from 64GB on most base models, and it saves so much hassle.
The next big headache was the Apple Pencil. The 9th gen works with the 1st generation Pencil, which charges by plugging into the iPad’s Lightning port. My son lost the little rubber charging cap twice in the first three months. Once he left it in his social studies classroom, and couldn’t charge his Pencil for a whole week until a custodian turned it in. He ended up buying a $30 third-party Pencil that charges via USB-C, and that worked just as well for taking notes and annotating, no lost caps required. The Air works with the 2nd generation Pencil, which charges magnetically on the side of the iPad and sticks there when it’s not in use. He never lost it, never forgot to charge it, and it’s always there when he needs it. If you can swing the upgrade for a 2nd gen Pencil, it’s worth it. If not, a cheap third-party option works just fine for regular school use—you don’t need the fancy name brand for basic note-taking.
When it comes to which actual model to buy, the answer is almost never the most expensive. I talked to another friend who’s a high school educational technology coach, and she says 99% of K-12 students don’t need an iPad Pro. The Pro’s extra screen size and faster processor are overkill for note-taking, turning in assignments, and even most video or design projects for class. If you’re on a tight budget, the current base model 10th generation iPad starts at $449 for 64GB, and upgrading to 128GB brings it to less than $500. It does everything most kids need for school. Refurbished 9th generation iPads are often under $300, and they’re a great pick for younger elementary kids or a classroom set for teachers. I know several elementary teachers who buy refurbished base models for their classroom centers, and they hold up great even after years of kid use.
If your kid is in high school, does after school activities like video editing, art, or coding, or just likes to have a bunch of apps open at once for group projects, the iPad Air is the sweet spot. It starts at $599 for 128GB with the education discount, and it handles every project my son has thrown at it this year, from editing a 10-minute documentary to running a Zoom call while taking notes and pulling up textbook pages. It never lags, never freezes, and fits in his backpack just fine.
We bought a $40 rugged case with a built-in stand for it, and that’s the only other extra I’d recommend. Skip the fancy $100 Apple cases; a sturdy no-name case with a good stand works just as well for kids who drop things.
This year, we’re keeping the Air for 9th grade, and the old borrowed 9th gen is now a backup for my niece, who just started middle school. We didn’t upgrade to the new iPad that came out this spring, and that’s fine. It still works, it still holds all his notes, and it still does everything he needs for class. I used to think you had to buy the newest, most expensive gear to set your kid up for school success, but this year taught me that’s rarely true. The main job of a school iPad is to cut down on the number of notebooks a kid has to haul around, and make turning in assignments easier. Any model that does that is good enough. Some days, he still forgets to charge his iPad before first period, and has to borrow a pencil and notebook from Ms. Henderson anyway. That hasn’t changed, no matter how much we spent.
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