When I walked into the office with my sleek iPad Air tucked away in my new Kit Universal Bluetooth Keyboard Case, a coworker looked at it and said, “What the fuck is that?” After explaining to him that with a good keyboard I could ditch the laptop altogether and lighten the load of carrying my 4.5kg corporate issue Dell, he seemed to accept it, just.
Steve Jobs famously “had this idea of being able to get rid of the keyboard, type on a multi-touch glass display” before the iPad or iPhone and I’m positive he would be more horrified with the idea of a physical keyboard attached to an iPad than the grumpy coworker.
What’s unique about the keyboard cover is that it will fit any 9 – 10 inch tablet whether it’s an iPad, Samsung Galaxy, or Android device. It comes with four elasticised metallic clips that make it easy to clip a tablet in or out.
The Kit Universal Bluetooth Keyboard Case battery lasts for an impressive 90 hours, has a standby of up to 80 days, and will charge in three hours. The Bluetooth version supported in version 3.0 with up to a range of 10 metres, although the use cases for needing to use a keyboard 10 metres away from their tablet can’t be that common.
It comes with a nifty stand which makes it easy to use on a desk, cafe table, or in bed, and a case best described as pleather, although I think the official term is PU Leather.
The keyboard has 84 keys including function and media keys. On the iPad Air all the common media keys worked, although the Windows specific keys and most of the function keys didn’t do anything and for Apple Tablets are a waste of space. An impressive feature is the magnetised keyboard which is easily removed and added back. I found the keyboard pretty easy to use with few errors, and a touch faster than the digital iPad keyboard.
What’s disappointing about the Kit Universal Bluetooth Keyboard Case is the size and weight. It gets back to my coworkers comment and Steve Jobs’ desire to make something beautiful. As a tool, it works fine and does the job, but it fails in the slick design stakes. Overall though, this is a good entry level external keyboard for tablets. There are better looking options with smaller form factors and slick designs, but this does the job at an affordable price and suits multiple tablets.
The KIT Universal Bluetooth Keyboard Case is available at Mobile Zap.
Do you have a copy of the instructions for the kit: Bluetooth case?
Sorry, I don’t. What help do you need?
Bought the keyboard today and very impressed however i have been able to get the functions keys to work i.e. F1 to F12 but how do you get the other function keys to work on the numbers for example the volume keys on 0 and -? Cheers