Why Do I Need an iPad If I Have a Laptop? (2024)

Having both an iPad and a laptop for business might sound like overkill, but it can actually be advantageous for your employees.

Having a laptop for serious business tasks and longer working sessions, and the alternative of an iPad for versatile work on-the-go situations can make life much easier for staff in dynamic roles.

Why Is iPad Pro For Business A Perfect Choice?

Many people still consider iPads and other tablets more of a luxury and leisure item. This couldn’t be further from the truth with iPad Pro.

iPad business options are limitless with iPad Pro because it has been designed for business, not with work as an afterthought.

iPad Pro houses an M1 chip making it extremely powerful for an iPad. In fact, the iPad Pro is very much on par with a business laptop in terms of power and capabilities.

iPad Pro with the M1 chip is fast, powerful and has very long battery life. It also has a sophisticated Liquid Retina 11-inch display, a wide-angle camera with auto camera panning for video conferencing, Wi-Fi 6 and 5G functionality. This gives the iPad Pro enormous flexibility for working from truly anywhere. It’s a smart piece of hardware for meetings, communication, collaborating and getting work done reactively on-the-go.

It’s light and portable and ideal for flying around different offices, working from home, and presenting at client sites without lugging a business laptop around.

With the add-on of the Apple Pencil, iPad Pro is a fantastic tool for drawing, sketching and graphic design. It’s an immersive tool, particularly for arts-based workers. Yet, a Magic Keyboard really brings it up to the level of a laptop, not only in terms of power but also functionality as you can type easily with it just like a laptop.

Yet, if the iPad Pro is a rival in capabilities to a laptop, why bother getting both?

First, let’s quickly analyse why it is useful to have an iPad business option plus a PC laptop business option together, then let’s reveal why even having an iPad Pro and MacBook is a good combination for business.

iPad And Business Laptops For Smarter Working

Opting for an iPad business model like the iPad Pro, plus a PC business laptop is an elegant solution to having varied hardware at your figure tips. In fact, a PC business laptop and an iPad and iPhone is a popular combination in and outside of business settings. Having the applications of a PC and Apple gives workers extensive versatility and compatibility. There are excellent hardware examples that could pair well with an iPad, such as a Samsung GalaxyBook, Microsoft Surface or a Dell laptop business grade like the Dell Latitude.

iPad Pro And MacBooks Are The Ultimate Business Power Couple

Despite all the iPad and MacBooks being different and having their own strengths and weakness, there is a lot of potential overlap in their functionality.

However, is the purpose of owning both a business iPad and a business MacBook really only about the tasks each device perform? Arguably no. It’s about the convenience of use in different environments.

The iPad business benefits extend outside of the office. With more home workers, hybrid workers, the need to give presentations at client sites, and wanting to work on-the-go, while commuting etc, in our ever more interconnected world, the iPad has some fantastic uses for flexible working on simpler tasks.

Similar Functionality, Different Roles

Many people psychologically like to assign different roles to different devices. Even though the iPad Pro and a MacBook have overlapping functionality, workers can find it helpful to segment their work and tasks by device.

Some staff prefer to have a greater divide between work and entertainment. Many freelancers, home workers, entrepreneurs etc, have both a business-grade MacBook for complex work tasks and all-day working, but their iPad for entertainment or catching up with communication work tasks wherever they happen to be.

Work, entertainment, reading, and communication; there is an increasing cross-over of these tasks in modern business and the iPad + MacBook team can make organising and managing these tasks easier.

While MacBooks like the MacBook Air are extremely light and portable, the iPad Pro is even lighter, more portable, and more flexible. However, even with a magic keyboard, it won’t be as comfortable for extended typing sessions.

Entertainment While Working

Many workers like to stream music or other media from their iPad while they are working on the MacBook. This can be great for morale.

Second Monitor

Using the iPad as a second monitor with Sidecar is one of the biggest reasons that owning both an iPad business model and a laptop business model is ideal.

For multitasking workers, this is phenomenally convenient. When your staff are doing complex tasks across apps, constantly minimising one window slows them down and that is why dual screens are so popular in business settings.

Apple Ecosystem

The cohesive Apple ecosystem is yet another good reason to opt for both iPads and MacBooks. Apple are using technology to make us seamlessly flow from one device to another, for example, start a work task on your MacBook but complete it on your iPad, or switch to your iPhone, all effortlessly and naturally. Updates in macOS Monterey have made it possible to use various Apple devices together in this workflow manner.

More Demanding Work Vs Simpler Tasks

For certain industries that use power-hungry, demanding systems, both a MacBook and iPad make sense in any scenario. They require a more powerful MacBook, perhaps with an M1 Pro, or even M1 Max, or Ultra chip for their main business tasks. However, an iPad, even the iPad Pro is not in this league and is a nice convenient alternative for those simpler communication tasks in the interim when you don’t want to crack open your laptop.

Leasing Apple Devices

With plenty of MacBook and business iPad deals available when you lease, obtaining PC business laptops, MacBooks and iPads is very straightforward.

Devices for Teams by Hardsoft have a number of business iPad deals on offer that you can combine with MacBooks or PC devices while spreading the cost of your equipment with a smart, supportive business lease.