For a University student I'd suggest you buy a good laptop first. As good as you can afford. Possibly also buy an external keyboard and mouse. Check if you're living in halls for that first year that you can't connect it to a TV monitor in your room. Then you have a kind of desktop setup.

Ignore tablets. I've got 4 (iPad, 2 Androids and a Windows Tablet* as of this week) and they're all a massive compromise for any kind of work that involves typing, even with external keyboards.

Tablets are for lying on the sofa surfing, watching video and casual gaming.


* Microsoft UK were selling the HP Stream 7 for under £50 this week and I couldn't resist adding it to my website development testing stable. Might even use it for a server status display under my desktop monitor.

As an university student (computer science and information technology) I have done very well with my Thinkpad T60, pen and paper. Couple people from my class use tablet to read course materials (powerpoint and pdf). I have myself ordered Jolla tablet and hopefully it helps with my studies.

Good luck with your choice and with your studies.

Regarding laptops and Lenovo. I have x240 for work and x230 for home. And there are no real advantades of x240 vs x230. X230 is good device and it is 50% cheaper than x240.

For tablet I have been considering Samsung Galaxy Tab S 10 inch version. Reason is, that this device supports several users and fingerprint authentication. Good for family usage.

A little note: beware of the horrendous touchpads on the 2014 model year ThinkPads:

Lenovo admits new trackpad was a mistake, IDF 14

The 2015 model year should be hopefully fine again and the 2012 & 2013 still usually have the old design.

+1 for Thinkpad T60, it is legendary for robustness and costs next to nothing as secondhand device!

If you will have a decent laptop anyway maybe there are not any reasons to buy a tablet.

But in case you want something like a mix, an ultrabook / tablet you can check devices like the Vaio Duo 11 / 13, Vaio Tap 11 or Surface Pro. I have the Duo 11 and can't be happier with it. It was exactly what I was looking for. Sony has sold Vaio division so stores have deals on these devices.

For me, one thing a tablet has a decisive advantage over a bog standard laptop is (as you've already noted) the reading of PDFs, and also other ebooks, comics and similar stuff in portrait mode. Sure you can do that on a laptop too if you don't mind holding it clumsily and awkwardly in portrait orientation.

I recently got an Asus TX201 Trio - it's a 3-in-1 thing - the "keyboard" is a full x86 system which you can use independently by connecting to an hdmi/displayport monitor, the "screen" is an intel-based android tablet, you can connect the screen to the keyboard to use it as a laptop. When in laptop mode you use a dedicated button to switch display between "PC" and android. During the day I use it for work in laptop mode, at night I detach the screen and use it as a tablet for reading comics or watching videos to unwind.

As others have said for serious work you definitely don't want to be using a "tablet" OS. Eg on my desktop firefox I have 2 windows with a combined total of well over 100 tabs opened - try doing that on a tablet.

The same goes for tablets.
Imagine the price of a tablet that could keep up with your desktop! I'm almost certain it doesn't even exist.

Business laptops usually have user-controllable fans and under light workloads these fans don't even need to run.
If you have a fancy slim laptop on the other hand that might be different because good cooling systems usually don't mix well with slim devices.

They produce the same amount of heat that goes in as electricity. So it's only a question of efficient components.

I own a 12" subnotebook for almost 8 years now. It weighs 2kg. Weight has never been an issue for me. Size on the other hand is.

True. But in this case the situation is not as bad as it might seem.
For myself and some friends I bought several laptops (Dell and Lenovo) from professional refurbishers during the last years. On all of them the Windows was optional.
All these devices were in excellent condition or any unforseen problems were easily resolved. I think this is a good alternative for anyone who doesn't need the latest hardware.

Then why would you buy a Chromebook?
I don't see how this situation differs from a Windows-bundled device.
The big disadvantage Chromebooks tend to have hardwarewise is their lack of mass storage. You can find similar "real laptops" that don't have this problem (if you care).

Does that matter? In my view the problem is not in the price but in the freedom of choice.
There's no logical reason why I should buy a device that's bundled with any OS.

Oh yes, there is. Buying the same laptop for £499 with Windows or for £799 without Windows is a no-brainer. Replacing Windows with something else does not affect my freedom of choice.

Of course. The solution is to simply not buy it at all.
If the increase in price obviously exceeds the cost of the work that is required to ship a device without Windows instead of with it, there's clearly something wrong.
And nobody will convince me that the work that is required to swap an HDD with a Windows image for an empty one is worth £300.

It does.
Buying a device with Windows while in fact you don't want it generates a false impression on the demand for Windows.
That false demand is a good argument why computers don't need to be open. If everybody wants Windows anyway, then why care about hardware that runs on FLOSS in the first place?