Full buyers guide

It’s that time of year when many of you will start to think about your kids heading back to school, college or university.

So while I’ll happily let you worry about uniforms, accommodation and loans where I thought I could step in to help was choosing the right kit for them to see them through their studies this year.

I’ll assume you have their iPhone sorted – so I’m going to focus on whether you should choose an iPad or MacBook Air. We’ll look at specs, what all the jargon means and also prices. In other words, this will be a buyer’s guide that will help you decide what will work best for them.

MacBook Air versus iPad – let’s begin to deep dive into where your money should be spent – and speaking about money, let’s first look at prices.

MacBook Air pricing

The first thing you need to know is there is an absolute bargain to be had with the MacBook Air right now!

You can still buy a 13-inch M2 MacBook Air with 8GB of memory and 256GB SSD storage for £999 – which is a steal. You get a gorgeous Liquid Retina display a fantastic backlit keyboard decent I/O and a battery that will easily last them the day at college.

If we’re talking bargains – don’t forget to check out one of Apple’s best-kept secrets their Certified Refurbished store. Looking on there a moment ago I saw an M1 13-inch Air going for only £759 – that’s a saving of £240. Or if you want like-for-like then the same M2 Air we were just looking at a moment back, well that’s on sale as a refurbished Mac, with all the normal Apple warranties for £849 – saving you £149.

If you want the latest M3 MacBook Air, they start at £1099.

My first word of caution would be about the memory. I’ve got the M3 iMac with 8GB of memory and the moment I start to push it, you notice it. I guess it’ll depend on the kind of coursework your kid is going to be doing, but my overall advice would be to avoid the 8GB models. The extra money spent upfront on getting a 16GB Mac will be worth it in the long run – I’d say that 16 GB of memory and 512 GB of storage config would be the sweet spot for any Mac as a good starting point.

Also, the moment you step up to 512GB of SSD storage you’ll get a 10-core GPU rather than the base 8-core. If you’ve read me before, you know I’m all about future-proofing.

As you know, you can’t upgrade the memory after purchasing your Mac but you can always buy external storage – and it isn’t that expensive. This Samsung T7 1 TB drive for instance has never let me down and only cost £80! And even for a whopping 2TB version, it would only cost £145. Putting your money into the memory would always be my advice.

And if your kid is going to be gaming, and more people are gaming on Mac now since Apple silicon was introduced, it’s worth remembering that the M3 models, even the base ones have Hardware-accelerated ray tracing.

If your kid is going to be at uni or college and away from home for months at a time, it’s also worth considering that the M3 Airs have voice isolation and enhanced voice clarity which will improve the quality of those FaceTime calls no end. The 1080p camera is identical across all MacBook Airs though.

All Airs have Wi-Fi 6, Bluetooth 5.3 and the same I/O of two Thunderbolt/USB 4 Ports which have transfer speeds of up to 40Gb/s. You get MagSafe charging, a 3.5mm headphone jack and Touch ID.

If they own an Apple Watch they’ll also be able to unlock with that as well. But there’s still no Face ID on any Mac – your guess is as good as mine as to when we’ll finally get that, and why it’s not on them yet.

The M2 MacBook Air supports one external display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz. Cutting through the marketing BS the M3 Air is no better. You can use a second external display but only if your Mac’s lid is closed – so you’re no better off.

MacBook battery life

Although I struggle to get the 18 hours of battery life that Apple claims I easily get 10 hours of straight use out of my MacBook Air which should mean your kid won’t have to bother taking the USB-C power adapter out with them – and trust me, I’ve been there, and the less they have to lose, the better.

So the perfect 13-inch MacBook Air with an 8-core CPU, 10-core GPU, a 16-core Neural Engine – and with Apple Intelligence coming soon that Neural Engine could become even more important and with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage…that will cost £1499.

One other point to consider is that the MacBook runs macOS and that means running the Microsoft Office suite of apps won’t be an issue that it is on iPads – that may well be an important point to remember – and I’ll come back to that a little later on too.

Finally, if portability is key – the MacBook Air lives up to its name. The 13-inch model weighs 2.7 pounds or roughly 1250 grams.

Turning to iPad

So now let’s turn our attention to the iPad. I’m going to rule out the mini as there is no keyboard for it and for that reason alone it’s not going to cut it. I’m also going to ignore the base iPad as I don’t think it will prove productive enough over time – remember we are trying to get it right the first time.

That means the choices for a serious contender to the Mac will come down to the iPad Air or iPad Pro.

The iPad Pro is currently the only Apple product to use M4 Apple silicon with up to a 10-core CPU and a 10-core GPU. The M2 chip on the other hand only has an 8-core CPU and a 9-core GPU. Both use the same 16-core Neural Engine.

The Pro can record in 4K ProRes and both have the same 12MP front-facing camera which is now placed on the long edge for more comfortable use on FaceTime calls.

Both the iPad Air and iPad Pro have USB-C ports but the one on the iPad Pro is a Thunderbolt/USB-C 4 port with much quicker transfer speeds. You get Face ID on the Pro but only Touch ID on the Air. The speakers and mics are also better on the iPad Pro.

Both use the Wi-Fi 6E and have 5G cellular options available. The Pro is slimmer and weighs less than the Air – oddly. The 11-inch iPad Pro only weighs 450 grams – or just under a pound. The same-sized Air is a little over 460 grams or just a shade over a pound. But of course, these prices and weights are for the iPad only. To turn these iPads into serious study machines you’ll almost certainly want to add a keyboard to them. I can tell you from experience – those keyboards add weight.

For my money, when it comes to battery life the iPad has too many average days whereas the MacBook Air seems more consistent. Don’t get me wrong, the iPad isn’t bad, but I seem to get better results from the MacBook Air.

Let’s look at the 11-inch iPad Pro first. The Pro has a much better Ultra Retina XDR tandem OLED display and it comes with ProMotion and starts at £999 with 256GB of storage which is probably not going to be enough. If we upgrade that up to 512GB we are already at £1199. The Apple Pencil Pro costs £129 and the Magic Keyboard comes in at a hefty £299. So this little lot costs £1328.

The 11-inch iPad Air starts at £599 and again I’ll upgrade it to a more realistic 512GB of storage. Adding on the Pencil Pro and Magic Keyboard will mean this config will set you back £1028.

Don’t forget the MacBook Air with 16GB of memory and 512GB of storage costs £1499. So, in fairness, if I were to look at the 13-inch iPad Air and iPad Pro with the same configs – well they would cost £1228 and £1628 respectively.

One other very important consideration to make is those issues with iPad and Microsoft Office which is still a real problem.

Which wins?

So which would I suggest you go with? Even though the iPad Pro is currently the only device on M4 Apple silicon and of course it’s an all-in-one device that you can shoot video on, edit and upload – all of that to one side, I think for a student because of macOS and it’s compatibility with Microsoft Office, the winner has to be the 13-inch M3 MacBook Air.

Combine that with the better speakers and mics and the solid battery life, the Ray Tracing and better I/O I think the MacBook Air will see your kid through college, university or school better than an iPad – and in the long run, if you get the specs right will cost you less too.

But I’d love to know your thoughts – are you about to kit out your kid for the new academic year and what do you think you’ll buy? MacBook Air or iPad – and if it’s the iPad, which one? Let me know….

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