Ipad Vs Laptop For Medical School

[starryskies]

I'm in the midst of deciding between a laptop or an iPad for med school lectures/ related stuff. I've used a laptop throughout undergraduate and while it has been helpful in several ways, I think I could have managed with a tablet just as well. The major issue I have with hauling a laptop everyday is that it's far heavier and it takes a lot more wear-and-tear than it normally should, so I'm thinking seriously about using an iPad for my everyday studying needs instead.

 

I've been told a laptop is invaluable in medical school because our lectures, notes, tutorial assignments etc are all posted online. Which makes sense, but it still sounds as though you can use a tablet for all those things as well.

 

Do any of you have experience using an iPad for studying in medical school, and would you recommend it? Any drawbacks? Or would it be better to just bring a laptop for Word access and the rest of it?

[Birdy]

I can't speak to its utility in med school yet since I don't start until next month, but I just went through the same decision process so I thought I'd share what I ultimately decided and why, in case it helps. I absolutely needed a new primary computer anyway since my laptop is about half a thought away from going to pieces.

 

I wanted both tablet and laptop and if possible something easily hooked up to externals as a desktop computer too. Obviously you can't do this with an iPad. I have an iPad and love it, but it did not end up as convenient for school as I once thought it would. Great for reading for long periods though and flipping through flashcards on Studyblue because it's so light so I usually put my textbooks on it.

 

Many laptops are easily hooked up to peripherals to become a desktop, but the lack of touchscreen would annoy me particularly for annotating PDFs and sketching flow charts.

 

What I ended up buying was a Surface Pro 3 and I LOVE it. I got a dock for it so I can leave the monitor, keyboard, and mouse hooked up on my desk and at the end of the day just come home and dock it to turn it into a full desktop. The touchscreen is fantastically responsive and it blocks input from your palm while you're writing with the pen (which has command buttons) so you can just write naturally on it like you would on a notepad, which is not the case for most tablets. The Pro has a full version of Windows 8 (which actually doesn't suck when it's on a tablet) so I can install any windows software and don't need to find tablet versions. It's really been quite fantastic for everything I need it for. It supports additional monitors easily and intuitively and becomes a secondary workspace when docked. You can drag across from the surface to the monitor. It's pretty big (12" screen) for a tablet but it's comfortable to use in laptop mode because of the larger screen, and it gives me enough space to write a full page worth of notes. The keyboard cover is a surprisingly normal feeling laptop keyboard - much better than the Bluetooth ones you can get for most tablets.

 

It runs about the same price as a MacBook Air for what I got - I had Best Buy match Microsoft's student pricing and their bundle deal - but it is very much worth it. I know it's going to be fantastic during school because I can see how much I would have been able to use it during undergrad. Several current med students recommended it to me and I can see why.

[penguin04]

As with Birdy I can't comment on tablets vs laptops for med school as I will also be starting in a month, but I can talk about the decision I ultimately made. I heard a lot of great things about the Surface Pro 3 and its ease of use for med school, but I utimately chose to go with a MacBook Pro for two reasons:

 

1) I absolutely despise Windows 8. We switched to it at work and it significantly decreased my productivity from the date of the switch. I know it's optimized for tablets and that the experience might be better on the Surface Pro, but it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I decided I couldn't deal with it as the interface for my main computer.

 

2) I love my current MacBook Pro! It worked so well and lasted for 8 years. It still works well today, but I wanted an upgrade. It even maintains a 3 hour battery life to this day on the original battery. As I was replacing my main computer and wanted something with the specs to last me as long or even longer than my previous laptop, I felt it was best to go with what was tried and true.

 

I already have an iPad mini that I foresee using for anatomy and textbooks. If you're replacing your main computer, consider what you think will last you, what you think is easier to use, and what has the specs to handle occasional heavy computing (I know we all mainly use computers for notes and browsing these days, but for those few times your computing needs get more advanced, you REALLY notice it when your specs don't service your needs).

 

But these are all my personal opinions. If you are considering a Surface Pro though, I would wait a little bit into September when the Surface Pro 4 is released. Good luck with whatever you choose!

[hking03]

I'm in the midst of deciding between a laptop or an iPad for med school lectures/ related stuff. I've used a laptop throughout undergraduate and while it has been helpful in several ways, I think I could have managed with a tablet just as well. The major issue I have with hauling a laptop everyday is that it's far heavier and it takes a lot more wear-and-tear than it normally should, so I'm thinking seriously about using an iPad for my everyday studying needs instead.

 

I've been told a laptop is invaluable in medical school because our lectures, notes, tutorial assignments etc are all posted online. Which makes sense, but it still sounds as though you can use a tablet for all those things as well.

 

Do any of you have experience using an iPad for studying in medical school, and would you recommend it? Any drawbacks? Or would it be better to just bring a laptop for Word access and the rest of it?

 

UBC Med IT has a strong dislike for ipads... it's gotten better over the years, but the process of accessing materials is not as seamless as it should be. You often have to click several times on links for them to reload and open in new windows, you will likely have to download apps like goodreader, annotate or something else similar.

 

For ease of use with respect to accessing lecture notes, recorded lectures, study materials a laptop or surface pro would be best...

 

An ipad is usuable, but you have to go through a few more steps to download materials...

 

For me- I used both an ipad and macbook. The macbook was what I used for a majority of my notes and prep. The ipad was for reviewing notes, creating quick summaries, accessing uptodate, and textbooks...

 

Others in my class used ipads almost exclusively so it's not impossible. And, if you like to draw/doodle then the ipad is the way to go for notetaking.

[makingfetchhappen]

As with Birdy I can't comment on tablets vs laptops for med school as I will also be starting in a month, but I can talk about the decision I ultimately made. I heard a lot of great things about the Surface Pro 3 and its ease of use for med school, but I utimately chose to go with a MacBook Pro for two reasons:

 

1) I absolutely despise Windows 8. We switched to it at work and it significantly decreased my productivity from the date of the switch. I know it's optimized for tablets and that the experience might be better on the Surface Pro, but it left such a bad taste in my mouth that I decided I couldn't deal with it as the interface for my main computer.

 

2) I love my current MacBook Pro! It worked so well and lasted for 8 years. It still works well today, but I wanted an upgrade. It even maintains a 3 hour battery life to this day on the original battery. As I was replacing my main computer and wanted something with the specs to last me as long or even longer than my previous laptop, I felt it was best to go with what was tried and true.

 

I already have an iPad mini that I foresee using for anatomy and textbooks. If you're replacing your main computer, consider what you think will last you, what you think is easier to use, and what has the specs to handle occasional heavy computing (I know we all mainly use computers for notes and browsing these days, but for those few times your computing needs get more advanced, you REALLY notice it when your specs don't service your needs).

 

But these are all my personal opinions. If you are considering a Surface Pro though, I would wait a little bit into September when the Surface Pro 4 is released. Good luck with whatever you choose!

Apparently the newest Windows has the normal desktop and Start Menu back, and it's free to upgrade yet.

 

I have Windows 8 and haven't bothered to upgrade yet. I downloaded an app called Classic Start at ninite.com, and it makes the set up like Windows 7.

[starryskies]

Thanks for the suggestions and advice guys! I guess I'll still have to mull things over, but I can see now that a laptop is probably something I won't be able to go without, but I'll still have to think about whether an iPad would also be a good supplement.

 

I'll look up the Surface Pro 3 though. I'm not a technically sound person, but if Birdy is singing praises over something then it's probably worth checking out

[NLengr]

The other option if you want laptop functionality, but cheap and lightweight is a netbook or a Chromebook.

 

I ended up buying one for studying for my Royal College. An iPad (which I own) was useless for studying (taking notes, storing things etc.) and my regular home laptop was too heavy to haul around everyday. 

 

I ended up buying one of these:

http://www.laptopmag.com/reviews/laptops/asus-eeebook-x205ta

 

It's lightweight and boots extremely quickly like a tablet, but I don't have to compromise on things like a keyboard or computer functionality.

 

Also, it was $200. Hard to go wrong for that price.