Best Pad For Students 2023- iPad Pro vs Air 4 vs 8th Gen

Hey students, In this article we can learn about the best pad for students. And a lot of people are catching on to just how useful iPads and tablets can be. For students and educational purposes, there’s a lot they can do.

And I’ve made articles covering every new iPad that’s come out in the past few years specifically from a student’s perspective. And you can check out all of those reviews if you want to know about any of the individual tablets, but I’ve never compared all the tablets in one article.

So today, we’re going to compare the $329 iPad eight versus the 599, iPad Air four versus the 799 iPad Pro 2020.

Of course, all of these tablets will have replacements this year in 2021. And I’ll make an update article when those happen. But for the time being, these are your options. If you’re a student looking to digitize your college experience, since it’s already completely online, most likely, this article is presented by Niebo a great and simple notetaking application to streamline your notes.

So we’re gonna divide this article into two parts, the aspects of these three tablets that are the same or similar between all of them that you can get regardless of the price point, and then what separates them and what divides and what is distinct between the different price points.

So let’s go ahead and get started with what is similar because they’re actually a lot for starters, they all had Apple Pencil support Mouse Trackpad, and keyboard support. Logitech combo case support, Document Scanning support, all support air pods, long battery life.

The full app store iMessage and FaceTime, and all of iOS 14, improved multitasking, a really good Safari, a great files app, and access to HDMI, SD, and USB adapters, if needed.

The Best Pad For Students in 2022:

Similarities to all iPad models: Best pad for students.

So starting out with number one, we have Apple Pencil support. And this is both first-party Apple Pencil support and third party, meaning that you can use Apple’s own pencil, whether it be the Apple Pencil, the second generation that we have here, or the Apple Pencil first generation.

But you can also use third-party slights such as a couple I have here and I compared six different options in an article which you can check out with the link, or by clicking the card. And these are much cheaper options. And they still work almost as well as Apple’s own stylus, if you just want to do things such as taking notes, drawing, annotating, things like that, to see if this works just fine.

Talk about: iPad Pro vs Air 4 vs 8th Gen

Now, if you haven’t the iPad Air like I have here or the iPad Pro, you’re going to be able to use the Apple Pencil second generation. This means that it’ll both magnetically attach and charge to your iPad automatically. So this is amazing for storage and just always keeping it charged. And also has a double-tap feature that allows you to quickly pull up a different gesture or a different tool such as the eraser by double-tapping, and it’s fantastic.

Or you can get the Apple Pencil first generation if you have the iPad eighth generation, and you’ve to charge with a cable or by plugging it into the USB port with a lightning port on your iPad. It also doesn’t have the double-tap feature as this one does.

So it’s not as nice but it’s a little bit cheaper if you’re getting the iPad eight, but it’s a little bit nicer and a little bit more expensive on the iPad Air and the iPad Pro, but you can always go with the cheaper third party options. Now secondly, you can use keyboards, trackpads, and mice with any of these iPads.

So, whether it be a Bluetooth mouse, such as this Logitech anywhere three mice that I reviewed recently, or the Logitech pebble, which is a super-compact, really light and quiet mouse, or you’re using a trackpad built into Apple’s magic keyboard, although this specific keyboard is not available for the iPad eight with the cursor, you’re able to navigate your iPad with a mouse and click on things and go in and out and drag and scroll through documents.

And it works super well. So you basically get a computer-like experience if you use a mouse with your iPad, and I’m a big fan of that. And you can do that with any of these iPads, though additionally, Logitech makes their combo case for all of these options. So this is the one for the iPad Air. And I did a review of this as well.

So one for the iPad Pro, as well as the one for the iPad eight. It’s essentially a plastic case with an excellent keyboard, a function room, and then a trackpad on the bottom. So you get a laptop-like experience when you’re using this case, and it works super well. And then Apple also makes their own keyboard for all of these iPads with the fabric texture. It’s not amazing, but it’s extremely slim and so impressive because of that.

Now, next is document scanning. So if you have homework or any type of paper, you want to scan onto your iPad, you can do it from different applications within the apps themselves. Or you can do it from Apple’s Notes app.

So if you have this compose a new note icon in your control center, you can actually just scan documents right there. And then if I wanted to scan this document, I’m able to do that and you can see it captured that automatically. So if I wanted to scan this newspaper, I’d be able to do that I can take a picture. And then I can crop it to what I want.

Now you can see I have a couple of documents here. And then I can click the share button. And I can click Niebo. And open this up and I can add it to a collection and import it. And all of a sudden, I have that document now, and I’m able to annotate it, draw on it, or do whatever I need right from there. Next is the App Store. So Apple definitely has the best app store when it comes to tablets.

There are so many apps that let you take advantage of the Apple Pencil you can see tons here. And just so much more. And as far as I can tell, every app that’s available for the iPad Pro is available for the iPad Air and is also available for the iPad eight.

So your favorite video streaming apps, social media projects, video editing, productivity, and more sort under which iPad you get, you’re going to get an awesome selection of very high-quality apps, including Microsoft Word and Wikipedia and Kahoot and Google Chrome, and more.

Nebo note-taking app: Best pad for students

Now, one of the top productivity apps and one you should absolutely try out for your Apple pencil is called Meebo. And they are the sponsor of this episode. And their newest software update allows you to import and annotate PDFs. So you bring in PDFs from any source that you have, you can send them right into the application, or you can import them.

So if your teacher sends you a reading for your class assignment, or you’re editing a paper that you’re doing, or whatever else the circumstance maybe, you’re able to highlight and underline and do whatever you need to do right from the app. And you can save it, you can share it, you can export it, and you can even publish it. But what’s even better than PDF editing is all the other features and smart gestures that this app does. So it can instantly go from handwriting to text with a double-tap.

So you can see that it just did that. And that can instantly edit and move around this text change the size and more. And it’s awesome. There are also other really cool gestures. For instance, I can draw a box around this and it’ll highlight it, or I can underline it, and it will make it bold. And this is the simplest and just best way of transferring written handwriting to text.

And then I can modify it however I want. I can scribble text out, or I can split them, or I can join them. There are a lot of things you can do. This is kind of like Apple’s new Notes app with all its gestures, but so much better. And here’s another cool feature, say I want to do a math problem, I can do the math. So for instance, if I need to do a calculus problem, like a new sine of 90, plus cosine of 27, whatever, then I can double-tap it, and it’ll give me the answer right there.

And then I have that problem there. So if you’re doing math problems, I can also quickly pull up a freeform diagram, if I need to do a chart or anything like that. This app is really simple and awesome for handwriting notes, then also converting it to text, and then modifying it in a breeze is awesome.

And you check it out for free in the App Store. Or you can buy specific packages that you want, ranging from $2 and up to $8 for the full package with all the features included. So it’s one of the cheaper freemium options out there. Because you can just pay for exactly the features you want, not the features that you don’t want.

More similarities: Best pad for students

Next, this one’s pretty simple. These all have iOS 14, which is the newest software for the iPads, or I should say, iPad os 14, currently iPad os 14.3. But they will also all get iOS 15 or iPad os 15 and iPad os 16. So they’re all on the same software bandwidth. So you don’t have to worry about not being updated to the newest software, depending on which iPad you get. These will all have the latest software for the next couple of years, which is awesome, and get all the newest features. Next is multitasking. And all of these applications allow you to have really great multitasking.

So this includes having one app on the left and one app on the right that you can resize to however you want. And then an app that you can pull over from the side. And then you can also pull up a picture and picture from YouTube or kind of any video streaming app that supports it. And you can have a little picture and picture video right here as well. So that’s pretty great.

And all these iPads support this multitasking, which is awesome. Next is the new and improved Safari, it’s gotten more powerful than ever. It’s got lots of tools such as the very old but underrated reader view that you can turn anything into a nice digestible readable view without any ads. Now, the desktop support has gotten much better. So you can load desktop web pages right here.

And you can also download things right to your iPad and goes to the Files folder. So previously on older devices and older software versions, you couldn’t actually download files but now you can download video and audio and more. It’ll go right to the Download Manager on your iPad, which is fantastic. So if you need video or audio for a project you’re working on you can download it right within Safari.

And there are a lot more settings and features that this has. So ninth is the files app and files are pretty great for not only having an online location, for instance, I have one drive and iCloud Drive.

But I can also access things that are on my Mac or my iPhone that share this files application. So I have my desktop on my Mac available on my iPad and more. And then I can also do tags and more. And this is just super handy for navigating different types of documents, videos, and files within the files app. And this is super powerful, perfect, but still really powerful on the iPad.

Differences between the iPads: Best pad for students

Now the differences between cameras are a big one. They all have a camera on the back and a camera on the front. However, the iPad Pro has two cameras on the back, one being a wide-angle.

And the iPad eighth Gen has really crappy cameras, the iPad Air has pretty decent cameras. And the iPad Pro has really good cameras, which are going to help with things like FaceTime. And if you ever want to use it to record really high-quality video, you can do that on the iPad Pro and even get 4k video on the iPad Air. But just a pretty mediocre video on the iPad.

the eighth generation, the iPad eighth generation has a slightly smaller screen, it’s 10.2 inches, which isn’t huge, but the iPad Air has a 10.9-inch screen, whereas the iPad Pro has an 11-inch screen, but they’re all very high resolution, and the same pixel density.

And then the iPad eighth Gen does not have it laminated display, which means that there is a slight gap between the actual glass and the display but neath it which you can notice and gives it a little bit of a halo effect.

When you’re tapping you can hear it. And also when you’re writing with your pencil, there’s just a slight gap there. Not a huge deal and you can get used to it. But it’s kind of a luxury to have on the iPad Air and the iPad Pro. Additionally, the iPad Pro has a 120-hertz refresh rate promotion display, which is going to make typing or sorry, writing with your Apple Pencil buttery smooth as well as just flicking across your device is going to make it feel faster, which is great, but not totally necessary.

And if you get the cheaper devices, you’ll get used to and comfortable with the 60-hertz refresh rate on the display. Not a huge deal and not the end of the world. In terms of performance. This one gonna be pretty big. Actually, the iPad Air is the fastest device here it has the newest processor, it’s really, really fast. The iPad Pro is also blazing fast. And the iPad eighth generation is totally usable, and fine for almost every task one throw at it.

Even some like video editing in iMovie or Luma fusion, but it’s not going to be blazing fast nor super snappy like the other two iPads are. So keep that in mind. It’s not slow, but it’s not fast. Whereas the more expensive iPads are fast. And then finally there is the USBC versus lightning difference. And this is really a big difference if you’re some type of creator.

So for myself, I use USBC all the time, not only does it allow me to simply charge my Apple watch or my Garmin watch or my iPhone from the USB C port. But I can also connect a USB C hub and I can instantly get access to more USB Type-A ports, USB Type C ports, HDMI, SD microSD, all of that within a single adapter, which you can’t really do from the iPad, eighth generation.

So if you’re trying to connect a display and a microphone and headphones, and an SD card and more at the same time, you can do that with a USB C adapter on the iPad Air or the iPad Pro, but not on the iPad eighth Gen. I don’t think most people are going to be doing this but it’s something that I do as a video creator and somebody who likes to attach microphones and displays and more accessories to

my iPad.

Note about iPad Mini: Best pad for students

Now I should probably end with a note about the iPad Mini. I made a review on it a couple of years ago. So you can check that out. Apple doesn’t really give too much love to the iPad Mini and it’s okay and super portable and can use it. It’s just not ideal to study after or study on or take notes on.

It’s just it’s a great device but it’s just a little bit too small to I think be a practical device. And that’s it’s just supplementing your Mac. But that’s it for this video. Let me know what device is right for you. Any of these three, none of these three.

Maybe it’s the M one MacBook Air which I also just reviewed and you can check that out.