[notfanboy]

An ultrabook with good battery life is the best choice for a university student. It is the most capable, most convenient, and most productive option by far.

With any tablet, regardless of OS, you would have a LOT of compromises and you would have to settle for a LOT of workarounds.

[Marauder2]

I'm in second year engineering. As of yet I have not had to write any extensive papers/essays, or make any presentations. The only thing I can not do on my PlayBook is computer programming and matlab. If you really don't want a laptop it could be done because, as has been said, there are many computers on campus with the programs installed. I have all my textbooks and pdf notes on my PlayBook and to take notes I have my files synced to Skydrive or use Splashtop. I play varsity soccer so for all the long bus rides or free time at other universities, I have everything I need accessible in a 7" form and get a lot done while others avoid bringing work or complain about how heavy their bag is haha

It works for me. I prefer to have a laptop for regular usage but I could easily do without. To each his own.

[berryaddict338]

I suggest you to get windows 8 surface, which is really a portable pc, and has more apps than playbook

[westcoastit]

I'm in second year engineering. As of yet I have not had to write any extensive papers/essays, or make any presentations. The only thing I can not do on my PlayBook is computer programming and matlab.

Have you not had to do lab reports yet? Is there a good equation editor on the PlayBook?

That, and simple collaboration with working teams, would make me shy away from a tablet only solution at this point. Paired with a laptop it might offer extra utility, but if I only had one device it would absolutely be a laptop over any tablet.

[mathprof08]

You could also use the PB to make audio recordings of lectures and then go back and transcribe them later. Fast typing will be made less important since you'd be able to pause the audio at any time. Some professors want you to ask permission before recording their lectures, but most don't care.

[cgk]

Your claim is not supported by a reasoned argument. I dare say the majority of undergraduate university students in the arts, humanities, social science faculties could effectively use the BlackBerry PlayBook during their four years in an academic environment. A notebook computer or desktop computer is not a requirement for these students despite your assertion to the contrary. The combination of BlackBerry PlayBook, Bluetooth keyboard and mouse, and a carefully selected suite of applications and/or web browser accessible services would meet the needs of these students.

A social sciences academic asks

- how does SPSS run on the playbook?
- How does Nvivo run on the playbook?
- How does Atlas Ti run on the playbook?
- how does Refworks run on the playbook?
- How does Zetero run on the playbook?
- Many of the textbooks we provide electronic - students like to be able to snap word into the left of their screen and the ebook on the right - how would you do that on the playbook?


That's just off the top of my head - what VLEs specifically support the playbook?

If the OP is writing essays and printing them or submitting them electronically and those documents are not being marked-up by the professor, lecturer, or teaching assistant the student could and should be using LaTeX and producing a PDF document for submission.

Turnitin (world's most popular plagarism software) often has problems with PDF submissions, we don't allow PDF submissions for that reason - as for using LaTex - hah - maybe for engineer and maths students but for social sciences and humanities students - you will never get wide-spread adoption.

Anyone planning to do a degree using just a tablet - be it a playbook, an ipad or something else is bonkers - they are handy supplementary devices, I'm sure some people like Maruader are managing fine but there are way too many compromises to be making blanket statements that the majority could manage just fine.

[Marauder2]

Have you not had to do lab reports yet? Is there a good equation editor on the PlayBook?

I haven't had to do any online reports yet. My reports have either been completed in lab or I get 2 days to hand it in, hich is done in our lab notebook with out results.

Regarding equation editors, I haven't had to use any. I would probably use my laptop for that. As a student, you could get by with only the playbook if you wanted to but you would need access to a computer on campus. In other words, you'd be better off getting a laptop.

[kill_9]

A social sciences academic asks

- how does SPSS run on the playbook?
- How does Nvivo run on the playbook?
- How does Atlas Ti run on the playbook?
- how does Refworks run on the playbook?
- How does Zetero run on the playbook?
- Many of the textbooks we provide electronic - students like to be able to snap word into the left of their screen and the ebook on the right - how would you do that on the playbook?

There are SPSS modules for R which is available as a cloud service (cloudstat.org) and an in-house option in the form of RStudio Server, and the more primitive Rweb. RefWorks is already a cloud-based service. Zetero functionality is covered by RefWorks although not as a web browser plug-in. As for Nvivo and Atlas Ti I only performed a cursory search and found nothing, not that there are no alternatives. And "snap" is a feature of Microsoft Windows 7 or 8 and as such is platform specific. Of course the BlackBerry PlayBook is not perfect but it is far from the red-headed stepchild so many people claim. Zetero probably could work with the BlackBerry PlayBook web browser if someone from the development team at RIM reached out to Zetero.

[kill_9]

Regarding equation editors, I haven't had to use any. I would probably use my laptop for that. As a student, you could get by with only the playbook if you wanted to but you would need access to a computer on campus. In other words, you'd be better off getting a laptop.

MathML for Web - using Adobe Flash Player - might work for you.

[BoldPreza]

To be frank, I tried the tablet thing though that was with my old Motorola Xoom and couldn't stand it. With the PlayBook and the little keyboard, I think you will be fine for note taking but IMO there are some things a PlayBook just can't do that a laptop would. Like print for example.

[dusdal]

You could also use the PB to make audio recordings of lectures and then go back and transcribe them later. Fast typing will be made less important since you'd be able to pause the audio at any time. Some professors want you to ask permission before recording their lectures, but most don't care.

I do this. The recording quality of the PB is fantastic even from the back of the room and you can drag and drop it over wifi at home to transfer it. Fantastic method so far, particularly when the professor is known for testing on lectures.

[dusdal]

To be frank, I tried the tablet thing though that was with my old Motorola Xoom and couldn't stand it. With the PlayBook and the little keyboard, I think you will be fine for note taking but IMO there are some things a PlayBook just can't do that a laptop would. Like print for example.

There are a few printing options now, though they all seem to require a PC client as well. One simply called 'print' has been quite effective. Also I believe the blackberry police cruiser was using a bluetooh printer, anyone tried this?

[cgk]

. And "snap" is a feature of Microsoft Windows 7 or 8 and as such is platform specific.

I don't mean snap in that specific of a sense - I literally mean just placing two windows side by side

Zetero probably could work with the BlackBerry PlayBook web browser if someone from the development team at RIM reached out to Zetero

That is half a solution to be as functional as the desktop version you need your online web-broswer based document editor to integrate with it so that you can cite as you write.