Zagg mate iPad Keyboard
I just bought the ZaggMate iPad keyboard+case. The outside is sturdy aluminium. Putting the iPad inside it won’t protect the back of the iPad, but the front is well protected. The docking port remains accessible. The iPad is held pretty securely face down inside the Zagg case, but you can’t reverse it and keep it in the case. In practice, that means that if you want to use the iPad as a tablet, you have to put the case somewhere.
What’s inside isn’t quite as ice. The keyboard is usable but cramped and cheap. The iPad stand is fiddly and cheap plastic. The arrow keys on the keyboard are in an odd location. And the edge of the Zagg case may get in the way if you keep your hands low while typing (it’s fine for me). To use the Bluetooth keyboard, you need to turn it on with a switch, and you need to remember to turn it off when you want to use the tablet as a tablet (since otherwise the onscreen keyboard won’t pop up).
It’s probably the best case/keyboard combo out there right now. But it could be a lot better than it is. Zagg should use bigger letter keys and make the TAB, DELETE, backslash, and enter keys smaller, and move some of them out of the way altogether. Since many of those keys don’t really work as they do on a desktop anyway, it probably doesn’t matter if they’re somewhere else. They should also get rid of that weird plastic stand and instead figure out a way in which the iPad is held securely just in a slot, or at least with a metal bracket that just flips up. The Bluetooth on-off key could be triggered simply by inserting the iPad, instead of a separate switch.
