MacBook Air + iPad as second screen / graphics tablet, anyone using?

markmullen

markmullen

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I'm currently using a M1 MacBook Air for editing which is brilliant coming from a Mac Pro in terms of portability, being able to edit on the road, in airports etc. I do however miss the dual monitors I had on my Mac Pro.

I was thinking of getting a portable monitor, and also a graphics tablet. One of my mates suggested an iPad would do all those jobs, and be useful as an iPad when not editing.

Is anyone using this combination, or similar? If so any views?

I spend up to 300 nights a year away from home so being portable is a big deal for me.
 
If you do your editing mainly in Lightroom just get an iPad Pro and the Apple Pencil for your editing, you'll never go back to using a laptop.
 
markmullen said:
Capture One Pro, but there is an iPad version, which I'd get.
Click to expand...
Ah ok fair enough. Yes there is an iPad version of C1 but I don't think it's as close to parity with the desktop version as LR is. Not sure as I've never used it but I'd imagine it's being rapidly developed to bring it up to speed.
 
I attempted to do what you suggest or are asking about at least with my MacBook Pro and iPad Pro (11”).

As a pure second screen as a point of reference say with a document or file open that you need to keep referring too or otherwise check on the iPad whilst working from the MacBook or a similar setup works great.

As a ‘graphics tablet’ type setup though I found the only way to do that and use the pencil was to mirror the MacBooks display to the iPad in which case I just preferred to work in LR mobile and sync if I then wanted to do something that required LRc.

It all works to a fashion but it wasn’t/isn’t for me so didn’t pursue it much beyond initial try.

I think for travel like you suggest I’d just work on the iPad then sync or save to a removable ssd and continue on the Mac as required.
I presume C1 allows or has some sort of sidecar system to allow the files to be worked on and pick up as you left off on different devices(?) No experience though but for me Adobe cloud has worked perfectly.
 
Not quite your use case, but for my work I have a 16 Inch MacBook Pro and I often have to deal with several large spreadsheets at once, so screen real estate is important. I have a 27 Inch 4K to use when working at home, but I have to share that desk with my wife, otherwise I'm on a more temporary setup on the dining room table and things are not so peachy.

I tried using my 11 inch iPad Pro, but TBH the screen was too tiny to be of much benefit and there was bit of lag in screen updates over WiFi.

Using my personal 2021 MBP 14 was a step up; it works well in terms of performance and colour over WiFi, but still not quite physically large enough for my needs.

I bit the bullet and ordered a UPerfect 15.6 inch 4K portable IPS display which weighs just 1kg (nearly half the weight of the MBP) and should be arriving in a couple of days. For under £200 delivered it looks to be a solution I can use anywhere. I shall be interested to see how well it calibrates. Can report back once I have it if you like.
 
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