TITLE: Is Apple ipad / tablet good for mathematics students?
QUESTION [158 upvotes]: I am a math student. I'd like to find out if tablets (iPads, Galaxy Note 10.1) are worth the cost. 
How good are tablets for the purposes of reading textbooks as PDF and writing mathematics with a stylus?
For writing math in TeX, it looked like the Android app store was in need of a TeX editor, so I had all the fun writing one which renders the TeX as on math.stackexchange, and can also export to PDF.

REPLY [2 votes]: This answer is biased towards physical things. The answer continues from this answer here.
iPad is pretty stupid thing without a good stand to help reading -- it is easy to damage its covers for instance in the bag. It is annoying to read with a stand that is falling. I have tested all kind of iPad things such as SmarterStand (I don't like it) and iPad with aluminium cover-keyboard (I don't like it) -- I use iPad mostly for reading and carrying around so a good leather protector stand is very-very useful.
It may not matter but my apps: I have worked quite a bit to work with iPad a bit like an office but nowadays I use it mostly for reading books, newspapers, occasional server maintenance and dictionaries. Office products are still very young and hard-to-use, it takes some time to get ice-breakers.
Apps

I. Misc such as ProCreate for fast recretional notes and iCab Mobile if no OS X.
II. Documents or PDF Expert app: they have a search over all content so you can search for an arbitrary word let say in Homeworks
III. iBook for reading (I earlier used GoodReader and PDF Expert for this but not anymore because iBook/OS X far better option for me now)

Accessories



Protective 45 degrees' Stand to see iPad upright like here

Neodymium magnets here, plastic tape and Origami keep the Jot Pro attached below the keyboard, not working with Jot Classic because of lacking magnets.

You can create a magnetized stylus with the DX light-laser-good-head stylus 81442 and the magnets by inserting magnets above the battery container, then you get the best laser-point led stylus so far on the market and it can be attached to iPad's cover similarly to Maglus. I don't like Maglus, I like the laser-pointer-stylus much more here. I get flashlight-laser-stylus in one thing, it is very useful during lectures and in group-working.