Thinking about buying an iPad.

What are you going to do with it, are you getting an external keyboard? They are nice but not consistent. I use both the touch screen and they keyboard for typing. Get the AirPad it has a recent chip and will last you several years. Wait for next year or get the most recent AirPad. Good speaker and suppose to be good or if you have the money get a pro.

I am guessing the others are referring to the state of VO on iOS, since iPadOS is basically iOS with caveats. VO has issues, especially since iOS 15, but it's not unusable. I have no recent experience with keyboards on the iPad though, since I have not touched a keyboard/iPad combo since the iPad Air 2 was "new".

Still, I think it could serve your needs.

Having said that, maybe consider spending less on a refurbished model, than a brand new and guaranteed to f**k up model?

/end 2 cents

Hi Miguel, I think that it could be a great option for you if you need a more compact solution for your classes, because I think that I would have done the same if at my times iPads were in the market, but they weren’t.
I like my iPad to surf on the web, to check emails, YouTube, etc. but if you need to change from app to app while taking your classes, I think the laptop would be a better option.
I don’t agree with other comments here that voiceover works better on an iPhone than on an ipad, I think it works great on both devises, but I prefer a bigger screen to work around with touchscreen.

Regarding keyboards for your ipad, I have a cheaper solution against the apple Magic Keyboard, it is named the MF-11 by a brand called Hou and it is great in quality and performance, and looks the same, but the keyboard is the smoothest I have ever used.
Best regards.

For all the things you are planning to do, get a pro. Basic iPad will not make it. Keyboard, That is mostly OK but not great. If you know someone who has one, request to play with it. Check the many features and see if you want it.

So I love my iPad Air for media consumption,YouTube, web browsing etc, And I like having the additional device. I wouldn’t be without it.
However I find it is very limited for productivity stuff. I did use one successfully for a course once, but that was just note taking, and a big advantage over a laptop was the battery.
If you need to use Excel, forget about it. You can’t navigate the worksheet with VoiceOver the same way as you can on a laptop. It’s disappointing.
There’s other little things that frustrate me like the lack of first letter navigation when using a keyboard.
I disagree with Holger that you should go for a Pro. The Air or even regular iPad or Mini would be just fine. iPads are crazy overpowered for the software they run.
The iPad Magic Keyboard case is great.

Hey Dave, there actually is a command for first letter navigation on the iPad, though unfortunately I don't remember what it is. Maybe VO Q like the way they set it up in Sonoma on the Mac? Give that a shot. If not, you may need to do some googling, but I know it works for a fact, as I was using my iPad Pro as primary device for a while, with the Brydge keyboard case, and I had it working.
I like the Pro a lot. I use it mostly for media consumption now, but also audio editing, stuff like that. I never really used it for school, as when I was in college, the first iPad came out, and while I had one, I never got good enough with it to use it for school. But, if you use Braille, you might not even need an external keyboard. Braille screen input, in table top mode, on the iPad is fantastic. Not sure about with the Mini, but on the regular, Air and Pro, the size should be good enough to make it work for you. I really like using the iPad that way. For a while, I tried to make the iPad be more like a laptop, but now that I have both devices, I tend to use the iPad more like it was intended, as a tablet.

Commands for iOS/iPadOS with a keyboard. Note some of these may seem a little outdated, as they mention the home button, but whatever. 🤷🏻‍♂️

https://pauljadam.com/demos/voiceovercommands.html

Hi, thanks for these.
Apologies, yes first letter navigation works when web browsing. I actually meant more widely in the OS. For example if you’re in the dock, and want to skip straight to Safari, you can’t simply press the S key. Or if moving an email to a folder, you can’t simply press the first letter of the folder you want, or similar in the Files app. Please correct me if I’m still wrong though.
Dave

You can also do this with Handwriting. In my experience, however, the handwriting rotor function is all kinds of broken in its current state.
Still, you can navigate with it.