Cytotoxictcell

you have a quad core laptop, and ipod touch 4g? I am transferring to another college and will be living on campus this fall. WOuld a tablet be pointless?

goldandblue92

Yes. I think tablets are almost always pointless, especially if you have a good laptop. The only point of a tablet in my opinion is to play angry birds on a bigger screen lol

juillet

No, not necessarily.

My experience is not directly transferable, since I'm a graduate student. The majority of my readings are in PDF - they are journal articles in scientific articles. I use my tablet (iPad 2) to do that reading. I have an app that allows me to sync them to the reference management software I have on my Mac and keep all of my articles organized. I can also use this app to sync to Dropbox and add notes, highlights and annotations to my articles.

If I have books, they are usually widely available on Amazon.com, so I download them in Kindle format to my reader. Rarely do I have textbooks anymore, but some textbooks are available in this format. Kindle is also useful for outside reading that's not required - for example, they have a lot of the statistics books I use to teach myself new concepts. I also read for pleasure through my iPad.

I also use my iPad to read the news so I don't have a million newspapers lying around. I've got tons of new apps. I also use it for casual web browsing when I don't feel like bringing my Mac somewhere. I have a portable keyboard I can use for it, so it's useful for taking notes during short meetings for which there is no point in lugging my Mac. Especially with Mountain Lion coming out, it'll be easier to sync my notes across the cloud.

You have to think about what your needs are. If you have a thin and light notebook like a MacBook and you aren't going to be reading a lot of PDF files, then you probably won't have much use for a tablet.

StarshipCAL

It depends on 1)what you plan on using each for, and 2)what tablet you have. I was in the same boat as you, iPod touch 4th Gen and quadcore Macbook Pro. For this reason I didn't buy an iPad or other early tablet because I felt that all of it's uses would be covered by the computer and ipod. Now, I also have a tablet in the form of a Kindle Fire. Even though it doesn't have all of the capabilities of a "normal" tablet, this works out well for me because it fits the niche between computer and ipod without crossing too much over on either side. So no, not entirely pointless, depending on what it is.

broken_symlink

all my homework is online, either pdf or course webpage. i also live like 10 blocks from campus. so, i found that having a small tablet is helpful. i would never buy a 10in tablet, but with a 7in tablet i can just pick it up and go. it fits in my sweatshirt pocket and the pocket for my jacket or i can easily put it in my backpack. i don't need to carry around my 15in. laptop that much anymore.

7 inches at 1280x800 is really the way to go if you want maximum portability and readability.

Hebrew

I am currently in high school and our school issues its students iPads for the full year. The only thing I like it for when it comes to school is reading PDFs. For writing ANYTHING you should be using a laptop. If you are using a 13" or smaller laptop definitely do not get a tablet.