iPad pro or MacBook Air

[cornettbr]

I'm going to be traveling a lot this summer and I don't want to take our one computer from my wife for the summer. I was considering buying an iPad pro with the keyboard and pencil to do school work. I was wondering a couple things:
1. Does safari do mobile view or does it do regular desktop?

2. Do you think this has the capability to be used instead of a MacBook Air?

 

[Andy Marie]

Are you going to use Safari as a browser? If so my opinion is not. Rather than try for Opera Mini.

 

[TechnologyTwitt]

I'm going to be traveling a lot this summer and I don't want to take our one computer from my wife for the summer. I was considering buying an iPad pro with the keyboard and pencil to do school work. I was wondering a couple things:
1. Does safari do mobile view or does it do regular desktop?

2. Do you think this has the capability to be used instead of a MacBook Air?

Not enough info to really answer the question but I will say this much....

Since I got my iPad Pro, Nov 19th, I haven't turned my Macbook Air on. I only use a Windows Laptop for an occasional email and a time clock app that only supports Windows.

I use Chrome (which supports Desktop View), Firefox and Safari on the iPad Pro. I use AltaMail for my email, Evernote, Dropbox, ToDoist and a mix of Word & Excel and the Google versions for documents and spreadsheets.

I only use the on screen keyboard and have a Musemee Notier Stylus which works great for the PDF annotations I do.

 

[TheRadBear]

I'm going to be traveling a lot this summer and I don't want to take our one computer from my wife for the summer. I was considering buying an iPad pro with the keyboard and pencil to do school work. I was wondering a couple things:
1. Does safari do mobile view or does it do regular desktop?

2. Do you think this has the capability to be used instead of a MacBook Air?

Hey,

Thanks for stopping by and asking an honest question. Here's a response from a guy who owns a 2011 MBA (still rocking fine), and the iPad Pro.

Re: 1

Yes, it does. The action menu at the bottom (the square-shaped icon with the up-facing arrow) offers an option called "Request Desktop Site". Overall, this is handy when you want to see the view as if it were displayed on your OS X machine. Mind you, most of the modern websites utilize what's called "responsive design" principles, that translate (paraphrasing as general as I could) that a website should look the same no matter the user agent in use. What this translates to is that you sometimes end up wondering wether you have actually switched to the desktop view, or not (in most cases you would have). Worst comes to worst, you simply reload the page after you have requested its desktop view - that's what I have been doing and seems to be working just fine. Word of caution, though: it is site-specific, not a universally applied setting - you'll have to re-apply per site. Performance-wise - Safari just screams.

Re: 2

ABSOLUTELY yes, plus you get the LTE modem (if you need one). While I am typing this on the MBA (it runs my test server), ALL of my work (including HTML & CSS editing and authoring) I (happily) do on the Pro, plus all the entertainment (and those iOS games, man...)

If you happen to be a web app developer the Pro will NOT be a fully fledged laptop replacement, as you ought to test the pages with variety of browsers. Although apps like Firefox and Chrome are available in the App Store, they are required to use Apple's WebKit engine on iOS, so it's more an overlay on the same engine that powers Safari on the Pro; that makes one's job difficult when in need of finding out browser-specific issues to address, say with HTML5 goodies, CSS3, etc.

Other than that, you are in for a HUGE fun.

Enjoy & good luck!

 

[Trees]

Recommend checking to see if the apps you need or are required to use for schoolwork are available on the iPad Pro. The iPad Pro is roughly as large dimensionally as MacBook Air 11", and with the Air you'd get a full featured OS plus a keyboard built into the laptop, and not have to carry a separate keyboard. The new MacBook is also something to consider as its light and fairly small, but has a higher screen resolution than the 11" Air.

 

[cornettbr]

The only thing i do for school is use pages and power point and use a blackboard site on safari

 

[cornettbr]

Btw thank you for replying guys, you are giving me a lot to consider!

 

[TheRadBear]

Recommend checking to see if the apps you need or are required to use for schoolwork are available on the iPad Pro. The iPad Pro is roughly as large dimensionally as MacBook Air 11", and with the Air you'd get a full featured OS plus a keyboard built into the laptop, and not have to carry a separate keyboard. The new MacBook is also something to consider as its light and fairly small, but has a higher screen resolution than the 11" Air.

Hey,

The Pro is LARGER than the 11" MBA - I can tell firsthand. I recommend checking it out by yourself (mind you, I did not and never regretted it) to see if the dimensions/weight ration suits you. Let's be honest - it's large

Cheers.

 

[Roger Stephens]

I've got both, and haven't used the MacBook Air since getting the Pro. There is a version of Office that works brilliantly and I find the on screen keyboard is perfectly useable. You can pair it with an Apple Bluetooth keyboard if you have a lot to write.. The screen is better. it actually seems faster on graphics programs than the MBA, and the pencil is also great (although annoyingly nowhere to store it).

Overall, it's lighter, better battery life (don't buy the apple keyboard for it, it's rubbish) and better screen. No brainer really. Buy one