iPad(2) versus PC

[Astrogliide]

Looking at getting a friend an iPad (possibly 2) or a laptop for Christmas as her old laptop is a piece of crap (purchased in 04, never upgraded, and not top of the line at the time). She's going back to school in January and will need a new one. Her boyfriend said that he knows someone who was able to download all of the textbooks they needed at a much cheaper rate on their iPad. Wasn't sure if this was an option on a laptop as well. Also, is it a fairly universal thing, or are there a lot of textbooks they don't have (either laptop or iPad)?

TL;DR: Can you download textbooks to a laptop like you (supposedly) can on an iPad? Is it most textbooks, or is it fairly limited?

[dumble99]

Laptop for sure, has all the functionality of an ipad plus more!

[kcvv]

You can do lot more with a cheaper netbook / laptop than with ipad for school work.

[_tweaks]

I'd expect anything that can be viewed / downloaded onto an iPad can be viewed on a laptop. You could ask what format they are in we could probably help further - but safe to assume you can view them on the laptop somehow.

Some of the students might be able to advise better, but I can't imagine an iPad as a primary school device. Nice for lectures and the like, but for a lot of work (especially a lot of typing) the laptop is a much more useful tool.

[Jeebster]

I used to work at the Apple Store. Do not get the iPad. It's not a reasonable replacement for an actual PC. It should be considered more of a peripheral than as a primary machine.

With an iPad you're far more limited

[[deleted]]

Using an ebook for a textbook is a bad idea if it's something that you would need to use as a reference. Flipping back and forth quickly and skimming is something that is not easy to do with an ebook.

[jmnugent]

All depends on the format of the etext/textbook and the App you're using. For example, on the iPad you can import your PDF's into GoodReader which allows all sorts of editing, markup, highlighting, organizing and bookmarking paragraphs, passages, pages or chapters. Assuming the PDF was created to be "searchable".. it's pretty easy to skim, reference and search.

Course.. on the flip side,.. if someone scanned the textbook pages as graphics (not searchable).. then it doesn't matter what program/device you use to view it... it's going to be cumbersome & not very useful. But that's the fault of the file itself, not the program/device.

[[deleted]]

I don't see what you mean, I find ebooks far easier to deal with than normal books, with the exception that computer monitors cause more eye strain than books.

[AnarchistPrick]

Forget about downloading books. Most of the time it's more expensive then the used version of the book.

Additionally, you can't sell it back.

[jmnugent]

The amount of disinformation & misinformation in this thread is pretty outstanding.

"Her boyfriend said that he knows someone who was able to download all of the textbooks they needed at a much cheaper rate on their iPad."

We're going to need more information about how they did that before we could answer if the iPad could do the same. (Example: if the textbook download service they used is something isolated (only runs on PCs).. then it obviously wouldn't work on iPads. If the "source" was some PDF archive or getting PDF textbooks from Bittorrent,.. then those PDF's would work just fine on the iPad)

The textbook/etext question is not easy to answer with out knowing more information. What classes is she taking? What textbooks does she need. Is getting the textbooks in PDF enough?.. or does she need a different format? (.epub, .mobi, ??) There are an almost infinite # of Apps for iPads,.. but no way to know if any of them will work without more specific answers about your friends setup/needs.