Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Apple Magic Keyboard: Floating iPad Pro?”.
What’S up guys i’m phd here, you know there used to be entire youtube channels, dedicated big ones, to just reviewing cases. You know laptop cases iphone cases. I never really got super into that because i was like. Oh, you know how interesting could a case really be? I’M not a big case guy, but this is. This has got to be the most interesting case, we’ve seen in a long time. This is the new apple magic keyboard case for the new ipad, pro 300 bucks for the small one and 350 bucks for this bigger one, and there was a lot of hype for this case right. It was announced alongside this new ipad, which was barely actually different from the previous ipad pro, but, along with the new mouse and cursor support on the ipad, it re-stoked this whole fire of.
Can the ipad pro be a full-time computer, so i’ve been using this new ipad and this magic case as my primary computer for the past couple days and all weekend and the conclusion i’ve gotten to is. This is the best version of the ipad as a computer. For sure, but i would still rather have a laptop, let me explain so for your money. This is actually a pretty substantial like nice case. There’S a lot going on here. It’S a top part full of magnets that locks onto the ipad and does not let go like it’s a strong magnet pattern matching up to the ipad, then there’s a hinge which is like this long metal tube through the middle, with a usb type-c pass-through port on The side for charging then a base, which is this silicon rubberized material, we’ve seen in apple cases before with a full-size, backlit, keyboard and trackpad, and it’s a lot of material. It’S a bit thicker and heavier also than you might be. Imagining you ready for this ipad. Pro weighs this big one 640 grams and then without the ipad. The case by itself weighs another 702 grams, so it weighs more than the ipad so combined.
They are thicker and heavier than a macbook air. And so, while it’s not nearly as elegant to open and close like a laptop would be, the one thing you can say about this case is: it is well built so to get this in place. Basically, you open this up and quickly. You find that the hinge has this locking point where it gets to the locking point and it snaps into place and that’s nice and then the top part continues opening like a hinge. So you’ve opened it like this. You take the ipad, you lock it with the magnets into the top half everything lights up, the pins are all connected, and now it’s floating above the keyboard as advertised now, we’ve already seen ipad cases with keyboards before there’s plenty of people already using them. But there’s a couple things that make this one so impressive number one is that hinge, it’s pretty stiff like a laptop and it is limited in how far back it goes but actually find it goes just far back enough for any of my normal use. It just kind of pops off the back and hovers the ipad there.
Then the keyboard is really nice. I think it’s, the nicest part it’s scissor switches, so it has a nice travel and it actually feels clicky like the new macbook air and 16 inch. Macbook pros keys and since the board is stiff and well built, there’s actually no flex at all, unlike some laptops and then it’s backlit, which no doubt sucks a little bit of extra power from the ipad’s battery.
But i like the backlight, it’s a nice touch. It fades on and off and just generally yeah it’s it’s the best keyboard. I’Ve ever seen in an ipad case, that’s facts and then, of course, there’s the trackpad 2..
It’S not the biggest trackpad in the world like you might find on a full-size laptop, but it is nice and it definitely completes the the laptop computer feel with the new ios cursor and it clicks it really physically clicks so everywhere from corner to corner, which is Nice, so now you have the ipad hovering above the keyboard here with just enough room to type and not really ever touch the ipad. Usually, for me, that’s good, and so now it feels like a computer. The usb type-c charging passthrough is at the bottom like where a normal computer port would be, and i seem to be getting almost 100 efficiency through those pins which definitely impressed me.
So it’s like a real 13-inch laptop ish computer with a 120 hertz screen and ipad os and all of its quirks. But let me tell you there are still a lot of quirks to this. Being your main computer.
First of all, weight management is something we often think about with these ipad cases. In a laptop you open this by the hinge and all the weight, all the guts in the computer are at the bottom and the top is just a lightweight screen. So opening and closing it pretty elegant, not a whole lot of problems there, but with the ipad.
In this case, or any case like this, the ipad is the computer, and so most of that weight is up top, and so it can feel a little bit top-heavy. This is part of why they made this case, so heavy is to try to combat this. A little bit to try to make it feel a little bit less top-heavy, but still it’s not perfect. This whole thing here, it’s still lappable in some positions. That’S a new word right. Lappable most of the classic laptop positions are still fine. I know some people were wondering about this, it’s better than you might expect, but from experience, it’s still not as flexible as a truly bottom weighted laptop, where the hinge is just moving the screen weight and then, if you get down to the keyboard great keyboard, like I said physically speaking, but there’s no escape key. So if i want to exit a full screen, video or use anything you typically escape, you have to touch the screen and you’ve probably noticed by now. There’S no function buttons at all on this keyboard, meaning there’s no brightness volume or even keyboard backlight brightness shortcuts, here for all that, you got ta touch the screen, in fact, just to change the keyboard brightness. You have to go into the settings app into general into keyboard settings and then into keyboard hardware settings and then that’s where you can manually turn up or down the keyboard. Backlight brightness. Luckily, auto brightness is typically still pretty good. It’S using the ipad’s sensors by the way, so that’s hopefully not something you have to do very often, but still you get the point here and then also i on a mac, i’m a i’m, a command q person as a lot of mac people are whenever i Want to quit an app command q to close it, it doesn’t quite work the same way here. If you’re in an app and you hit command q, nothing happens. You have to touch the screen or command h to go home, but if you actually do want to close an app in your multitasking, without touching the screen shout out to peter mckinnon actually for teaching me this, you go to the command tab menu and then find The app you want to close in there and then command q to close that, and then you know like normal with an ipad there’s a bunch of gestures from the trackpad and keyboard shortcuts to learn.
In fact, if you hold down command at any point in anything, it’ll show you a list of all the keyboard shortcuts available to you at that time in that app. So that’s a pretty cool pro tip, but that represents a little bit of a learning curve. If you’ve come from something else with a keyboard, so at the end of the day, let me let me wrap it all up with this. My macbook air spec is 1200 bucks. This ipad pro the 13 inch. The same size screen is a thousand bucks plus the 350 case that makes it 1350.
now, if i could only have one if i could only have a laptop with no ipad or this ipad keyboard case, which is a bit more expensive but no laptop. I really want to say i would rather have this i’d rather have like the ability to pop off and have an ipad at any time, and then, when i want to type, i got the keyboard and i can go back and forth and it’s much more fun. It’S 120 hertz. It’S got way more apps, there’s cameras. If i need them, this is just more fun, but i still need that laptop sometimes, and for me, that’s especially when multitasking like.
If i’m writing the review on the keyboard – and i have spotify playing in the background – and i just want to skip to the next song – there’s no button for it – i have to go over into spotify and then swipe and then come like. Have you ever tried to be on a zoom call and take notes at the same time in an ipad? Good luck, it’s not! It doesn’t work, but all that being said in ipad land. There are two types of people in this world: those who get a case or a folio or a keyboard for their ipad, and they keep it in it all the time they never take it out. That’S just the way the ipad is now or those who get a key keyboard or case and pop it out and use it mostly like an ipad all the time and then sometimes they need a type so they’ll pop it in here type away. It becomes a typing machine, then, when they’re done pop, it back out, use it as an ipad again for that second type of person, this setup this accessory is the best possible version of the ipad.
This is a go. This is awesome, go for it spring. The 300 bucks, but for me i’m not getting rid of my laptop, but that’s been it thanks for watching catch, you guys the next one. Peace .