I tested three iPads for school notes last semester and here’s what no one tells you
My old 2018 MacBook died the week before fall midterms, after I spilled half an oat latte on it in the campus coffee shop. I was already broke from paying for my lab books that month, so buying a new laptop was out of the question. I’d seen so many people raving about using iPads for school that I figured I’d test around before dropping any money, since half my friends had one they weren’t using full time. Long story short, I borrowed three different models over the course of a month, ended up buying one, and I have way more messy, unscripted thoughts than any of those pretty edited videos ever mention.
First up was my roommate Lila’s 10th generation base iPad, the cheapest new one you can get right now. She let me borrow it for two weeks while I sorted things out. It worked fine, don’t get me wrong. The screen was big enough to write notes, split screen worked for putting my lecture slides on one half and my notes on the other. But man, that Apple Pencil 1 situation is so dumb. You have to plug the end of it into the iPad’s USB C port to charge it. I can’t tell you how many times it died halfway through a 9am bio lecture, and I’d have to balance the whole thing on my desk with the pencil sticking out the bottom, wobbly as hell. Once my backpack brushed the pencil while I was leaning down to grab my water bottle, and the whole iPad went tumbling off the desk onto the concrete floor. Everyone in the front row turned to look at me. Lila still teases me about that, even though it didn’t break. The palm rejection was also wonky sometimes— I have big hands, so I rest my palm on the screen when I write, and once it randomly drew a huge diagonal line right through a full page of organic chemistry structures I’d spent 20 minutes copying. I had to start over.
After that, my friend Mia let me borrow her 11 inch iPad Pro, the new M2 one, while she was doing a study abroad program in Portugal that first month. The difference was night and day, honestly. Apple Pencil 2 sticks to the side magnetically, charges there, no weird plugging in. Palm rejection worked 100% of the time, no random lines, lag was nonexistent even when I had three big 100-page lecture PDFs open at once. But good god, that thing is expensive. Even with the student discount, it’s almost $800 for the base storage, before you even buy the pencil. I was working 12 hours a week at the campus bookstore making minimum wage, there was no way I could swing that. Also, I’m clumsy. I dropped it once in the library, got a tiny little scratch on the screen, and I panicked so bad I paid $80 for a fancy tempered glass screen protector to put on it before I gave it back. I’m not paying that much for a device just to panic every time I pull it out of my backpack. Also, do I need an M2 chip for taking notes and opening textbooks? I’m not editing short films for my film class, I’m just memorizing the bones of the hand. All that extra power just sits there, unused. That’s such a waste of money for most students.
I ended up finding a used iPad Air 5 on Facebook Marketplace from a senior who’d just graduated. She’d gotten it for her senior thesis, didn’t need it for her new office job, and sold it to me with the Apple Pencil 2 and a padded case for $400. That was exactly all the money I had saved up, so I jumped on it. I was nervous about buying used, I’ve had bad luck with secondhand electronics before, but the only damage is a tiny scratch on the back aluminum from when she dropped it out of her tote bag once, and you can’t even see it with the case on. It’s been four months, and it’s been almost perfect. It’s light enough that I can carry it around all day without my shoulders aching, the pencil charges on the side, no wobbly mess. Split screen works great, I can read a lecture slide and write notes at the same time no lag, most of the time. If I leave it on for 8 hours straight with 10 Safari tabs open, it’ll stutter a little when I switch between apps, but that’s my bad for never closing anything. I bought a $30 Bluetooth keyboard off Amazon for writing essays, and it works way better than I thought it would— I don’t get why people drop $300 on the Apple Magic Keyboard when a $30 one does the same thing for school work.
The thing no one talks about, by the way, is wrist pain. I tried holding that 12.9 inch Pro that another friend has for a two hour lecture once, and my wrist was sore for the rest of the day. Everyone says bigger is better for notes, but if you’re holding it in your lap or writing while it’s propped up, a bigger screen means more weight. If you’re taking notes every day, that adds up. Also, that hand writing to text conversion everyone raves about? It’s garbage if you write fast like I do. I once shared my notes with the class during a review session, converted it to text to project on the board, and it turned “mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell” into “microphones is the power source of the sell”. Everyone laughed, I wanted to disappear into the floor. It’s not perfect, no matter what anyone says.
I get asked all the time which one I’d tell people to buy, and I don’t have a neat one-size-fits-all answer. If you’re really broke, a used base model will work fine, just keep a second pencil charged so you don’t get caught mid-lecture with a dead stylus. If you have a little cash to spend, the iPad Air— new or used, it doesn’t matter— is more than enough for 90% of undergrads. Only get the Pro if you’re doing art or video editing or something that actually needs that much power, otherwise you’re just throwing hundreds of dollars away for features you’ll never touch. And don’t let anyone tell you it’s a full replacement for a laptop, by the way. I still borrow my roommate’s laptop when I have to write a 15 page research paper, because typing for three hours straight on even my good Bluetooth keyboard gets old, and the screen is too small to have my sources and my draft open at the same time comfortably. It’s great for notes, it’s great for reading textbooks between classes, it saved my midterms last semester. But it’s not a magic fix for all your school gear problems. That’s the part no one posts about, I guess.
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