Surface Pro or Macbook pro

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I have an old Macbook Pro (from 2011) that works just fine. I have added an additional hard drive and replaced the battery, so it is almost good as new. However, it is not the most portable laptops.

I was thinking about getting the refurbished Surface Pro 3 to take to class (because you can annotate and etc.). I was planning on using OneNote, so I know OneNote is now available on Macs as well. What do you guys think about having two different systems?
 
I have an old lenovo laptop at home that is hooked up to a dual monitor setup, which is awesome.
I have a surface pro 3 for class etc.

0 Problems with the setup. USB drives are cheap if you need to transfer things between computers. Or you could store things on the cloud and just access them from the two different machines. It's really not that hard tbh.

Having a dedicated portable machine is fantastic.
 
Love to use the two with the app called "duet". Basically turns your iPad into a second monitor. Dual screens on the go ftw.

That sounds awesome!

For everyone, what are some of your go to apps that you find useful? More specifically, what is your opinion on Notability, Onenote or Evernote for note taking? Do you use Dropbox or something similar to access documents across devices? Is there a good app to help with anatomy? I'm thinking of getting an iPad Pro to supplement my MacBook. Thanks!


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Just switched from a macbook pro (been a mac person all my life) to a Surface Pro (WHERE IS THE DOCK?!?) All kidding aside, I'm really loving the surface pro. I do a bit of PC gaming, and surprisingly this tiny thing can run Dota 2, Cities Skylines, and Guild Wars. I won't be using it permanently for gaming, as I may be acquiring a true laptop (ASUS) soon, but if you are into that it'll work. On a more serious side of things, I used it to highlight and manually annotate research papers for my senior thesis (Drawboard PDF is the best!) which was a million times better than doing it on a non-touch screen laptop. I have also used it to annotate powerpoints, which like you said is a huge plus. One of my classes this past semester used an online program called Draw It to Know It (which is great, if you can pay the subscription fee :/), and drawing the tutorials was a breeze with the tablet. I have also used Drawboard PDF to create blank documents and draw pathways (super useful for classes from neuro to biochem to inorganic chem), which is an amazing hands-on way to learn them without taking up pages upon pages of notebook space. If you're creative, I have recently (today) found out that Drawboard PDF also works really well for, well, drawing artistically. I started working on drawing a character for my D&D campaign today, and so far it's coming out great!

I can speak to Macs too, having owned one for most of my life. They certainly are survivable--in HS I used my mom's old macbook pro. It was already 5 years+ old when I got it and made it to 10 before totally kicking the bucket. The one I got for college was going strong after 4 years, but had an unfortunate run-in with my glass of water. So if you're not a klutz, you could drop the extra $$ for a macbook and be set for years. Being a mac person (not sure where my allegiances lie now) I can also wax poetic about the UI. Everything is super accessible, and looks super nice. One thing I have discovered since getting a windows machine, however, is that the Office Suite looks like absolute **** on a mac. And while you can't annotate slides like with surface pro, you can write notes in the bottom of the ppt slide. If you have any more questions about either computer, feel free to pm me!
 
I bought a brand new MacBook Pro with the touch bar and got an external monitor as well. Absolutely love it.

Some people love the surface for its touchscreen, particularly for handwriting notes in a digital format. For me this is the biggest thing the surface has that MacBook Pro doesn't. I don't personally use a computer for note writing so it wasn't a big deal for me, but if you want that ability you might consider the surface.

Also let's refrain from an apple vs. droid/PC pissing contest shall we. I'll never understand why people connect which brands they use to their self worth. Figure out dispassionately which one meets your needs.
Would you recommend getting an IPS monitor instead of a TN monitor? How big of a difference would it make?
 
Would you recommend getting an IPS monitor instead of a TN monitor? How big of a difference would it make?

I think the main difference between IPS and TN is that you can have wider viewing angles. I don't think my monitor is IPS and it seems to work nicely.
 
I have a MBP and I just got used to using a Wacom Intuos tab with it. It works beautifully in OneNote if you import all your PowerPoints into OneNote by saving them as PDF. Such an incredible tool. Plus OneNote allows you to record lectures, if your professors are cool w/ that.
 
I have a MBP and I just got used to using a Wacom Intuos tab with it. It works beautifully in OneNote if you import all your PowerPoints into OneNote by saving them as PDF. Such an incredible tool. Plus OneNote allows you to record lectures, if your professors are cool w/ that.

I was curious about the Wacom Intuos tab + MBP. Can you use it to annotate (Like with PDF Editors)? Also, is there any delay? any minor irritations? Was seriously considering doing this.
 
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I was curious about the Wacom Intuos tab + MBP. Can you use it to annotate (Like with PDF Editors)? Also, is there any delay? any minor irritations? Was seriously considering doing this.

Just looked this up. Sounds interesting..also curious to know how you're liking it.


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I was curious about the Wacom Intuos tab + MBP. Can you use it to annotate (Like with PDF Editors)? Also, is there any delay? any minor irritations? Was seriously considering doing this.
No dude, no problems. And yes, you can use it to annotate. It's been awesome.
 
Just looked this up. Sounds interesting..also curious to know how you're liking it.


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Definitely takes some getting used to. I used it for 3 days without touching my trackpad, but once I was used to it, it's all I can do.
 
I've got an Intuos tablet... I'll admit I haven't spent much time with it, but I honestly couldn't imagine using that solely as a writing device. If it's important to you to be able to write, I would much rather use a gigantic iPad or Surface Pro. The Intuos method is sort of hacking together a suboptimal solution IMO.
 
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