But it is designed for the iPad - mostly. It's not a generic Bluetooth keyboard making do. It has an Apple Command key, and function keys that call up the virtual keyboard and the iPad's global search screen. It has a handy Home key and controls for the iPad's audio volume and music playback.
The keyboard's battery is charged separately
Any smaller-than-usual keyboard has a slight learning curve, of course, but I found I got going quickly and accurately with this one. It's certainly a decent, if quirky, alternative to the virtual keyboard, especially if you see yourself thrashing out pages of prose at a sitting.
The keyboard has a notch at the back into which you can tuck the panel of the folio on which the iPad is mounted. The angle won't suit everyone, but the area above the keyboard is ribbed, so you can tilt the screen at other angles too.
A large flap tucks over the side of the iPad to keep it in place, but it's a faff to get in and out, so the assumption has to be that you'll keep your tablet in the case. KeyCase loses points for the wee glue overspill that got stuck on my iPad. The Apple device folds down over the keyboard - another reason for the silicone key cover - and another fold, held in place magnetically, shuts the case.
It's less comfortable to use the iPad in tablet fashion when it's in the case
All in all, the Folio has a nice design, and while having the keyboard in there inevitably makes this case thicker than many others, there's not actually a lot in it. It's very comfortable to carry.
COMMENTS
And so...
...the iPad is transformed back into a Laptop, and the circle is complete.
The Obvious Solution
Surely the obvious solution would be to use a 2nd iPad with a full-screen touch keyboard displayed.
No worries about battery then, eh?
(You could also maybe use a 3rd iPad as a dedicated touchpad.)
not quite complete
The circle is nearly complete as Jim suggests, except that you've now got a netbook that isn't running a real operating system and can't do a lot of things you want it to do. Oh, and it cost you a lot more.
I don't see the objection to the 3 year life span to be honest, for £60 I think you can expect it to fail in 3 years, what other electronic frippery at such a low price would still be working fine after three years? Even a £200 (subsidised) phone only has a two year life cycle before it's upgraded.
LOL WUT?
Why does a physical keyboard have a key that brings up the... wait for it... virtual keyboard?
Too expensive for the limitations
I bought a £3 iPad case (with built in stand) and £17 bluetoothcompact keyboard both on eBay (UK vendor) ... both are extremely well made and the keyboard runs on 2 AA batteries. The mini-keyboard includes a lovely mini-mouse joystick and is a chocbloc style complete with working multi-media keys and of course it easily pairs with my mac mini linked to the HDTV.
I loved the Z88 .. wrote my PhD using one (in LaTeX) ... 8 lines of 80 characters .. excellent and the dead flesh keyboard was great but attracted the dust but was wipe clean! I even wrote a file upload/downloader to transfer data to/from a Sun 3 workstation ... ahh those were the days 8-)
