Ask Paul: March 31 (Premium)

Happy Friday! I'm a bit later than usual because we had our house closing today, but let's finally kick off the weekend with another great set of reader questions.
Which iPad
jt5 asks:

iPad Air Verus iPad Pro I recently had my iPad Air stolen in San Fransisco - and took as an opportunity to replace it with the iPad Pro (Got it on a really good deal from Costco- almost same price as the air).  My only complaint about the air was I did not like where the fingerprint sensor was- it felt awkward when using it in a case.  I like the pro's facial recognition better.   I am curious what your thoughts are on it- as I believe you are using the Air. 

Yes. I bought an iPad Air in April 2021, so almost two years ago. But to put this in perspective, three things have changed since then: the iPad Air has switched to an M1 chipset (mine has an A14 chipset, the same chipset used in the iPhone 12 series), Apple has shipped a new iPad mini, and Apple has finally redesigned the base iPad with the same basic design as the iPad Pro, iPad Air, and iPad mini, with smaller bezels and flat sides.

I mention all that because at the time I bought my Air, this was the cheapest way to get the newer design, and I couldn’t bear getting another big bezel iPad. Had the latest iPad mini revision been available, I would have gotten that instead. And had the newest base iPad been available, I would have gotten that. I chose the Air because those options weren't available yet. Plus it has USB-C instead of Lightning.

The thing is, I use the iPad exclusively for consumption tasks: reading daily and occasional video viewing while on trips. The ability to use this thing sort of like a laptop is not of interest to me, but if it was, I'd probably be looking at the bigger iPad Pro, which is quite expensive. Since it isn't, I'd almost certainly just get the cheapest iPad I could today, so the base iPad.

As far as my current iPad Air goes, I have no major complaints. I agree the fingerprint reader isn't ideal, but it mostly works fine. Mine doesn't support Face ID, though it looks like the new version does (as do the iPad mini and base iPad). I suspect the screen is nicer than that on the iPad mini or base iPad, but I'm not sure if that would matter much for my use. If I can get another year out of this thing, and I'm sure I can, I'll reevaluate the available choices then. But I wish there was a viable Android tablet I could consider. Maybe the Pixel Tablet? I doubt it with the first version.

The other question I have related to this is education related.  I am thinking about getting another degree and have both a surface pro and the iPad.  I prefer to the surface in almost every case- except for when I travel.  There are many more apps available on the iPad for video content etc.  Since I travel a lot- I will need to be doing course work when traveling.  How well do you think the IPad will work for this?  I know it is an opinion question- but I apprec...