Email on an iPad and a Windows box

[#1]

My daughter currently has a Windows laptop and will shortly have an iPad. She wishes to read emails on the iPad and on the laptop but, having read them on one, she would like to have them available for download to the other with all emails being available for download to the laptop being essential.
The laptop currently uses POP3 to download to Thunderbird after the queue has been inspected in Mailwasher.
She has been advised (PC World) to change to IMAP for both devices but it would seem simpler to use POP3 on both with the iPad set to leave emails on the server permanently and the laptop to delete them after (say) 30 days.
Am I missing something?

[#2]

The two main advantages using imap over pop are
I
1. You can organise your emails into folders and they are available to be seen by all devices. Unlike pop which only can see the inbox folder.
2. When set up correctly email sent from any device can be seen by all devices unlike pop which store sent emails on the local device and cannot be seen by the others.

[#3]

That's what I do
Use pop3 there is a tick box to leave mails on the server. I leave ours for 14 days.  We have a desktop a laptop and an iPad and we can see emails on all three
Most usefully when I go travelling I can check my mail anywhere by webmail or setting up a local computer

[#4]

If you use Webmail to send an email then you can't see this email when using pop3 on the other devices unlike imap which you can.
imap is the only solution when using multiple devices.

[#5]

Quote from: itsme

imap is the only solution when using multiple devices.

K?
I use a different sulution 

[#6]

Yes but it's a work around as pop3 is really for a single device unlike imap which is for multiple devices.
Also a disadvantage with pop is that it download the complete message in received order which is a problem when connected to a slow connection and there is a large email as this has to be downloaded before others can be seen. IMAP on the other hand  which normally is set up to display headers and a few lines only so you can see all emails and select which emails you wish to read.