5 Read Books and Comics (in Bed)

I love nothing more than reading a few volumes of a manga or a few issues of a comic book series before falling asleep. My iPad, with its wonderful 12.9-inch miniLED display, is by far the best device I own for this purpose. I have an eReader, but that's only good for books and acceptable for manga in a pinch,

Technically, my MacBook is thin and light enough to curl up in bed with it, but the form factor makes it unpleasant to use as a book, which is no slight against laptops in general or MacBooks in particular. There's just no other device I have that can fill the niche of "general-purpose full-color reading device" the way my big iPad does. Even when you rotate the content and turn the MacBook on its side.

Maybe it could work if Apple ever made a 2-in-1 convertible touchscreen MacBook one day, but I think there's a better chance of Apple changing its logo to a banana at this point.

4 Annotating Documents (With a Pen)

I don't draw, or at least I should say that I don't draw well, but my wife and I both share an Apple Pencil between us and use it for different purposes. One of the best things about the Apple Pencil is that you can easily move and pair it between different iPads. Just stick it to the magnetic spot meant for it, and it will start working with the iPad in question.

She's a video editor and photographer, and so she tends to use the pencil for editing photos, where it's perfect for cutting out objects or painting stuff on top of other stuff. She also draws YouTube thumbnails by hand, sometimes in apps like Procreate and, I kid you not, makes her own fonts for fun.

By contrast, the times I swipe the Pencil from her iPad are much more pedestrian, but when I need to annotate PDFs or other similar documents, there simply isn't a better device in my stable than the iPad plus its Pencil. Annotating documents on my MacBook is an utter pain, and really just breaks the flow of my research process.

3 Watching YouTube (in the Shower)

I watch a lot of YouTube content. Partly for my own entertainment, but mostly because my job involves being hyper-informed about all the latest stuff, and my go-to YouTube channels always have that info neatly summarized so I can pick out the most important things to follow up on later.

I watch more YouTube (and streaming content in general) on my iPad than any other device I own—smartphones and TVs included. While my MacBook is a fine device for watching content, I just don't feel comfortable taking it to all the same spots I take my iPad.

Especially because I like to watch YouTube videos during my morning shower. Obviously, I don't take my iPad into the shower with me (maybe there's a waterproof case for that), but I like to put it down on top of the laundry basket or another suitable surface and then watch some of my favorite technology channels so I can learn something while I take care of ablutions.

Some people might say that exposing my iPad to the steamy environment of my bathroom isn't good for it, but honestly, I've been doing this since the iPad 2, and it's never been an issue. All of my iPads have survived just fine, and that first iPad 2 was in use for ten years before the battery finally gave up the ghost completely.

I absolutely wouldn't do the same thing with my MacBook Pro though, given it has open fan vents, a keyboard, and generally wasn't designed to be a mobile device like a phone or a tablet.

2 Video Calls (Anywhere I Want)

I truly, honestly love the Center Stage camera on my new M4 MacBook Pro, and it's a big step-up over any other webcam on any device I own, but I find that most of the time, I prefer using my iPad to take video calls over both my iPhone and MacBook. I'm still rocking an M2 iPad Pro, so sadly it doesn't have that new camera, but being able to put my iPad down anywhere, even on surfaces that are too narrow or rough for my MacBook, has been too convenient to ignore.

I don't have a case with a built-in kickstand for my iPhone, and besides the screen is too small for distant viewing, my iPad has the (very underrated) Apple magnetic smart cover, which means no part of the iPad touches the surface it's on. Just remember to wipe it before closing it, lest you scratch the screen with tiny bits of sand or something.

While I generally use my AirPods for video calls on the iPad, I've actually gotten into the habit of just using the tablet's own speakers and mics if I'm somewhere privacy isn't required, and it works really well.

1 Watching Movies (on a Plane)

As I said above, my iPad is my number one media consumption device and I watch pretty much 90% of all my shows and movies on it. So, while I don't use public transport much, and rarely fly these days, you can bet that it's my iPad that's coming out of the bag to watch whatever movies or shows I've downloaded to it.

To be honest, a big reason for this, even though the screen is less adjustable than a MacBook, are those videos and photos of people getting their MacBooks crushed when the person in front reclines their seat. With how thin MacBook screens are, it doesn't take much to break one, but I've corner-dropped an iPad from three feet onto concrete, and the worst that happened was a small dent in its metal shell.

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I'll always have room in my life for a MacBook (or something like that), but if you forced me to choose between only keeping my iPad or only keeping my MacBook going ahead–I'd choose my iPad 10 out of 10 times.