Using iPad Pro 13" + Magic Keyboard as laptop replacement with Moonlight
Deciding between a MacBook and an iPad Pro 13" + Magic Keyboard setup. My day-to-day is mostly reading, writing, drafting, and light office work (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) — all of which I'm told iPadOS handles well enough now. I'm a law student so the core use case is really reading cases and PDFs, writing papers and briefs, light research, and occasional spreadsheet work. The large 13" screen and Pencil support for annotating cases is actually a big draw for me beyond just the laptop replacement angle. So I’m considering accepting the cons of using it as a laptop and attempting to alleviate them with moonlight.
The plan for anything heavier (coding, video/photo editing, gaming) is to stream from my desktop PC at home via Moonlight + Apollo. My home setup is very dialed in and works great. The main unknown is relying on client networks when I'm away — school, my research clerkship, etc. Those tend to have solid internet and I can VPN back home, so I'm not too worried.
For those using Moonlight as part of a similar "iPad as laptop replacement" setup:
- How has streaming held up on school/office/public networks via VPN?
- Any latency or quality issues that made certain tasks (coding, data work) frustrating vs. at home?
- Anything you wish you'd known before going this route?
Appreciate any real-world experience — most of what I find online is home network use cases.