Mac vs Surface (current med students)

[Luna Lovegood]

What are the pros and cons of each computer for med school? 

[frenchpress]

I use an iPad for school, mainly because I also have a Mac and and iPhone and I like the cross compatibility. You can’t get tablet functionality with a Mac computer, you’d need an iPad.

The main thing that’s useful for me for medical school is being able to directly write on slides to take notes. The amount of content we have is really enormous, and it’s too much for me to handwrite notes in lecture or print off the slides and mark them up. The Apple Pencil works really well for this purpose — the writing experience is pretty smooth and realistic. The iPad has software limitations though, so I do occasionally need to use my Mac laptop instead (for example, when taking exams, which are all multiple choice on the computer).

Lots of people in my class have surfaces and seem very happy with them. It may work better as an all around computer / tablet, but I am not really sure since I don’t have one.

[Edict]

If you're a sheep, get a Mac. 

[OwnerOfTheTARDIS]

A lot of people in my class are obsessed with the iPad + Macbook combo. A few who bought a Surface in the summer have actually bought an iPad as well because they were disappointed with the Surface performance  don't know exactly why it didn't work for them. 

I personally wanted to save money so I just use my old Macbook air and added this: https://www.amazon.com/Intuos-illustration-production-CTH-490-B1/dp/B013SMIUB2/ref=zg_bs_3228285011_41?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=QBZ1B41W4KGHHH1757WS

it's a ~$100 writing pad that is plenty sufficient for the anatomy lectures where I want to be able to draw on pdfs/slides. I have never taken a lot of handwritten notes so I didn't need anything fancier.