Apple’s beautifully built Magic Keyboard turns your iPad Pro into a laptop with satisfying keys and a trackpad—at a very high price.
Apple’s iPad Pro is an
amazing piece of hardware that’s gated by its software. With a 120Hz display, powerful speakers, and support for the unparalleled Apple
Pencil stylus, it’s a gorgeous tablet for reading, writing, and creating art, and
its processor measures up to the ones in most laptops. The Magic Keyboard (starting at $299 for the 11-inch model) finally turns the iPad Pro into the gorgeous convertible laptop it’s been trying to become for years. Snapped into the keyboard like a cockpit, the iPad’s hardware is second to none. But it still doesn’t have the full productivity apps it needs to supplant similarly priced Mac laptops.
Gorgeous Hardware
Like Apple’s Smart Keyboard
(which doesn’t have a trackpad), the Magic Keyboard snaps onto your iPad magnetically. The tablet hangs off
at an adjustable angle, floating a bit in midair. It’s a useful and
gorgeous effect, once you get used to how sturdy it is.
The iPad almost floats above the keyboard, held up by magnets
The keyboard has 64 roomy, full-sized keys that use the
same mechanism as Apple’s new laptops: scissor switches with a satisfying bit
of throw that makes it easy to type quickly. The keys are subtly backlit without
noticeable light leaking out from under or between them; you can alter the
light level in settings. The trackpad is satisfyingly clicky, and supports
multi-touch.
SEE ALSO: The Best RGB Keyboards for 2020
The key layout is very basic. There are arrows, command,
control, and option keys, as well as a “globe” key (which I set to escape), but
no dedicated media keys or function keys. The cursor keys are half-height.
A basic keyboard layout has roomy keys
Since it uses the iPad’s Smart Connector, the keyboard is perfectly
responsive and accurate. I’ve had some issues with lag and double-typing on
Bluetooth keyboards, but I didn’t have that here.
In the
case, the iPad is firm and balanced, as easy to use and as stable on a lap
as a MacBook Pro, to the point that you can sort of forget it isn’t a laptop. That
isn’t true with kickstand-based solutions like the Microsoft Surface devices or
the Logitech Combo Pro case, which can wobble on your knees.
