Life as a student is great, but it's not all about partying; you'll also be required to do some work. To make that part of your journey as a student smoother you will be looking for the best tech to take to university or college.
In this article we help you select the best iPad for the student life, seeking out the devices that offer the perfect combination of portability, power, ease of use and value for money.
Before you decide which iPad to buy, there are a few things to note. The biggest is the fact that if you are a student, a teacher, or you are employed by an educational institution, you can get money off a new Apple product by shopping in Apple's education store. You can read all about how to get an Apple Student Discount here.
Plus, if you buy an iPad (or a Mac) from Apple and you are a student you might be able to get a pair of free AirPods while Apple's Back To School Promotion is running (usually June to October in the US, from July in the UK).
Here's a link to Apple's Education Store (in the UK you will need to verify your student status via UNiDAYS). Click here to visit the Education Store if you are in the US.
If you want to know whether an iPad will be suitable for your needs at university, college or school jump to the section below: Should students buy an iPad or a laptop?
Best iPad for students
Before you go ahead and buy your iPad you may want to consider its suitability for your purpose.
As a student you probably have a few requirements:
- Low price
- Great apps for things like note taking, recording lectures and revision
- Light enough to carry around all day
- Keyboard and stylus support
- Suitable for making video calls home
You might be wondering whether a tablet or a laptop would be better for those needs, and if you lean towards the latter, take a look at our guide to the best Macs for students.
We think, however, that an iPad is a great choice. It runs many of the apps you'll find on a laptop, including Office apps like Word and PowerPoint and the Apple equivalents, and in some cases an iPad is actually more powerful than a laptop thanks to the super-fast processors Apple uses.
Another benefit is that you can have all the books you need for your course on your iPad and carry them with you to lectures and tutorials. You could even photograph pages from books in the library and use optical character recognition to save the text to your iPad.
Not only do you not need to lug all your books around with you, an iPad is far lighter than even the lightest laptop, so you won't be getting backache from lugging it around with you to lectures and the library.
With battery life of 10 hours - plenty for a day on campus - you aren't going to need to find a space beside a plug socket in order to get though a day at uni.
Think that having an iPad will mean you have to type on an on-screen keyboard? No! You could sync any Bluetooth keyboard or plug in one of Apple's own iPad keyboards and effectively turn your iPad into a laptop. There's also the Apple Pencil, which could come in useful if you wanted to jot down some notes on your iPad screen in a lecture. See Best stylus for iPad.
And when you've finished studying there are loads of games, and apps for video calling your parents.
Still not sure? We have more information comparing a MacBook laptop and an iPad.
Are iPads good for students?
The next question you might want some reassurance on is whether the iPad is the best option for a student. There are a lot of other tablets available, many of which are cheaper than an iPad. So you might be thinking of saving some money.
We think if you do so you will regret it. There are many reasons why Apple's iPads are so popular:
- The App Store is heaving with great apps designed specifically for the iPad.
- Many of those apps will be ideal for students: note taking apps, apps for converting handwriting to text, apps for recording lectures, timetable management, and of course video calling (so you can stay in touch with mum and dad).
- There is an ecosystem of great accessories designed to work with the iPad.
- Apple's iPadOS is stable and easy to use, especially if you already have an iPhone.
- If you've got a Mac you can use an iPad as a second screen, provided you are runing Big Sur or Catalina, or, when it lauches, Monteray.
How to get an iPad student discount
If you're still thinking that the price of an iPad is a little more than you want to spend, here's some good news: you don't have to pay full price at all.
Apple offers a student discount via its Apple UK Education Store or Apple's US Education Store. Sign up with details of your student status and course, and prove your identity. We explain how to do this in our article How to get an Apple student discount.
If you can't get a student discount that doesn't mean you won't be able to get money off a new iPad. Read our round up of best iPad deals.
Further reading
That's all of our student-related buying advice, but if you're buying for someone younger, check out our guide to the best iPad for kids.
