Retiring teacher seeking advice on whether to buy a laptop or tablet

[Soontobe60]

I’m looking for tech recommendations. In July, I will finally fully retire from teaching, having first started teaching in 1991. For the last 20 years, I’ve always used tech provided by my school so have had no need to purchase a PC or laptop. We currently use Chromebooks in school now but obviously I will need to return mine when I leave.
I use an iPad most of the time at home but am unsure as to whether I will miss having a laptop / Chromebook for certain things. I don’t want to fork out for something I might not use.
Does anyone have a suggestion as to what device, if any, they would recommend?

It depends what you’re going to be using it for. Will you be doing lots of typing? It’s possible to get a keyboard to connect with an iPad but I find it much easier to use a laptop. I’ve got a lightweight laptop.

I have a fairly nice laptop, a MacBook Air but I hardly ever use it tbh. On the other hand I replaced my iPad recently as I use that all the time, According to DH who cares about these things the new iPad has a processor faster than most laptops. Occasionally some sites seem to work better on a laptop but I would wait and see if there is anything you can’t do in your iPad before making a decision.

I retired a couple of years ago and had both but tend for convenience to just use my IPad Air with the bigger screen. I pay for Microsoft as use Excel to keep on top of my finances. Recently upgraded my IPad and nearly bought a different brand of tablet but according to my research iPad updates last much longer than other brands, had my previous iPad 10years. This persuaded me the extra cost was worth it. I did have a keyboard attachment for my last iPad but never use it.

I think this is like me. Mines an iPad Air with a keyboard (thats now broken) and I’ve had it 6 years. BTW, I asked Chatgpt to create a Google sheet that I use to keep track of my finances - it works really well without the expense of paying for Microsoft.

MacBook neo. Get it through the education site while you can. It’s the best of both iPad/laptop in one. Brilliant and cheap!

Depends what you want to use it for. I use a tablet for reading news, doomscrolling MN and playing solitaire type games. However I do my banking, ordering items etc on a laptop. Some things require a larger screen (such as watching a film) or needing a browser. Apps don't have all the extras (or links or ability to download) that you can access via a browser so the experiences of the same bank for instance can be totally different.

Since you already have a tablet you don't need to hurry out and buy a laptop.

I use a phone for 90% of stuff but laptop occasionally - when I want to do something thst involves more typing.

But, if youve got a tablet you can attach a keyboard to, you probably dont need a laptop.

I have both. I use my tablet for everyday stuff, but for documents, anything on the government gateway, anything where I'm going to need to save something, print it out, or just need a bigger screen, I use my computer. I have a small format computer which is basically a tiny box with a full sized screen.