You stated "You know you can use a standard Bluetooth and keyboard and mouse with an iPad? My wife uses her 13 inch iPad for everything - mostly Zoom, Office, everything web based"

In my opinion all of that works better on a laptop. I don't use any streaming services so that functionality is not important for me, but I do recognize that may be important for some.

For me carrying a tablet + laptop while traveling would just be wasted space when I can and prefer to do everything on the laptop anyways.

Yeah but the cheapest iPad only costs $300. Not all of us can afford a MacBook Air. Not to mention I found a case which has a kickstand feature + magnetic BT keyboard + pen to make it work like a laptop + added pen functionality ($60 for all of those 3rd party accessories).

So you don’t understand why someone who doesn’t need a computer most of the time might rather have an iPad?

Besides, you can’t get a MacBook with cellular and you can’t download movies to use offline with most streaming services on a Mac since most of them don’t have Mac apps.

We travel a lot. Even I take my laptop + iPad + external USB powered/USB video display that works with one USB cable. Most of the time I just use my external display. But I can use my iPad as a third display.

I really use my personal laptop for nothing. I left it at home while we are spending a month and a half in another country. When I get off work, I don’t think about using my computer for anything - I don’t do side projects and haven’t for 30 years.