Which Is Better for Students?

Every student needs some sort of larger device beyond a smartphone for their studies these days, and the two most popular choices seem to be Chromebooks or iPads. However, unless the school in question chooses for you, how should you make the decision? Let’s weigh up the key differences.

Chromebooks Are More Affordable

The base model iPad starts at around $350, though with an educational discount you can shave that down to around $330. That’s a fantastic price given what even the most basic iPad packs under the hood, but it’s quite a bit more than the cheapest Chromebooks.

In our best budget Chromebooks roundup, there are several great options for under $200 and when you have to buy more than one device, that price difference can have a big impact!

Lenovo IdeaPad Slim 3 Chromebook

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Chromebooks Come With a Keyboard

Chromebooks are laptops. At least you can buy a Chromebook that’s in a traditional laptop form, but there are, of course, convertible tablet-like Chromebooks as well. Either way, a keyboard and pointing device like a trackpad is included in the price of a Chromebook.

In the case of an iPad, you need to spend additional money to buy a keyboard and (optionally) a mouse. While there are some types of students that don’t really need a keyboard for their studies, in the vast majority of cases, students need to do a substantial amount of writing and a touchscreen just isn’t ideal for that purpose.

Rugged Chromebooks Exist

I’ll preface this by saying that I have dropped more than my fair share of iPads in my life, and they all survived with little more than a dent or two to show for it. That said, there are Chromebooks that have been specifically ruggedized for educational use, and it stands to reason they’ll take far more punishment than accidentally knocking an iPad from the table once a year or so.

Of course, you can buy ruggedized cases for iPads, but in my experience, this hurts the usability of the device substantially, compared to a Chromebook laptop that’s designed from the ground up to take a pounding. How important this is depends on the type of student in question, of course. You’d expect a college first-year student to take care of an expensive device, while a 5th-grader might be less conscientious.

iPads Perform Better

Even the lowest-end iPad offers performance beyond what 99% of students are likely to ever need. The A14 Bionic on the 10th-generation iPad comes from the iPhone 12, and hardly anyone can argue that this former flagship chip isn’t up to just about any task. Even for the same money, you’re likely to get a slower CPU and almost certainly lower GPU performance on the Chromebook side of the fence.

However, if you spend more money than the iPad on a Chromebook, you can get something with substantially more oomph under the hood. However, I feel pretty comfortable in saying that the basic iPad offers better price-to-performance value than most Chromebooks.

iPads Are Better for Creative Tasks

If your student needs to draw, edit video, work with sound, music, or otherwise create content, then on balance, the iPad is the better bet. The Apple Pencil combined with a multitude of excellent drawing apps on the iPad means you can pretty much make anything on one of these little tablets. In fact, this is one area where software gives the iPad a distinct advantage over Chromebooks, which are pretty limited when it comes to what software you can run.

Apple Pencil 1

The original Apple Pencil converts an iPad into a notepad or canvas with its unique stylus design using sensitive pressure and tilt sensors to draw on your screen.

The iPad benefits from the massive amount of high-quality software found in the Apple App Store. Coupled with how well Apple’s chip technology can run that software, makes it no-contest in my opinion.

This applies to tablets in general, but iPads in particular have excellent sound and picture. They have good Wi-Fi hardware, and the form factor makes them easier to use without a flat surface like a desk. If you have a convertible Chromebook in mind, some of that will also be true, but for the price, it’s doubtful you’d find a Chromebook with the same quality screen or touchscreen performance.

Both iPads and Chromebooks are extremely popular in the education sector, and there’s no clearly superior option here. It entirely depends on the budget, needs, and use cases of the students in question. Both options require some form of compromise, but hopefully you have a better idea of the broad and most important differences.