Tablet or Laptop: Which is Best for Students

At the beginning of this past school year, my youngest brother was off to college and needed a computer for his freshmen year. As his older brother, I am always looking for ways to help him out and steer him in the right direction. As the oldest, I sure wish I had someone there to help me along in the early years. So when he said that he needed a computer for school, I automatically think ok… laptop.

But then he questioned that and told me his school actually said either a laptop or tablet could work, as long as he had a keyboard. Now to me, and my old school thinking, I am shocked to think of a tablet as more than just something to cruise around the web with on Sunday mornings while relaxing on the couch.

Related: Find this topic interesting? Read other stories regarding authentication security and the user experience on my authentication blog. 

I hit the internet to do some comparison shopping to figure out which one would be best to fit his needs as a college freshman. USA Today, had a great article with a fantastic list of pros and cons to consider.

Laptop:

Pros: bigger screen, clamshell screen protection, connected keyboard. 

Cons: battery life, size and weight, costly software.

Initially my gut said, get a laptop. Back when I was in school I had a laptop and it was my lifeline. In the age of MySpace and Surge soda, they ruled the roost and allowed me to do all of my work no matter where I was.

After doing some research, I found that a good laptop (non-Mac) can be purchased for about $500. This would get him a decent size hard drive, processor and a good-sized monitor. Then I looked at a Google Chromebook and saw that it was $199. This was a little bit of a game changer; more on that to come. 

Tablet: 

Pros: lightweight, no wait to power up, free or inexpensive software.

Cons: smaller screen size, harder to type on (unless there is a keyboard), lack of memory.

With my Sunday morning bias towards tablets I took a hard look at what was available on the market as well. There were definitely affordable options available and Samsung and Apple seemed to be the top two choices to choose from. The mire lack of selection with the tablets was certainly scary. Granted: there are some “no-name” brands available, but for some reason it just did not feel right with the off brand selection.

Our Conclusion

After looking through the selection online and then going to Best Buy to test drive each option, we decided to go with the Google Chromebook. This is kind of a hybrid between a laptop and a tablet when you get right down to it. You get the functionality of a laptop with the keyboard and bigger monitor, and also the price point of a tablet. Another great feature that is more tablet based is that fact that it runs on apps and not on actual software. This will keep the cost down for my brother when having to purchase new programs. One last thing that was definitely a tipping point was the cloud storage. Now typically I would rather have my documents saved locally, but I remember as a college student sometimes forgetting my laptop or storage device and wishing that I had an easy place to access it. With the cloud storage, my brother can access his work from virtually anywhere as he needs it.

But hey, this is completely my opinion and based on my own experiences and research.